Applesauce Snacking Cake

So much to post, so little time.  My blog files are getting backed up with recipes that I have made, but have yet to find the time to type up and post... I keep trying to clear out the backlog and just find myself getting further and further behind.  Maybe we should just order pizza for a month so that I don't have any more new recipes to post???

I decided early December to join a cake decorating club here in the West Island.  I was looking for some sort of new activity for myself, to help save me from my never-ending schedule of kid-related activities.  My sister mentioned that a friend of hers was taking cake decorating lessons and that seemed to be a great fit for me.  After doing a bit of searching, I came across this club that is cheaper than taking lessons, so I figured I would join. It'll get me out of the house once a month without the kids and will (hopefully!!) lead to me being able to decorate beautiful cakes for my kids' birthdays.  I had attempted my first cake decorating for Logan's 1st birthday and it turned out pretty well.  But I'm excited to learn all sorts of new stuff about cake decorating.

So today I rushed to get together all of the required supplies and then to get Logan fed before I was out the door with Chloé for my first meeting.  All to find that it had been cancelled because of the weather.  Boo!  Such disappointment... so any blogging of beautiful cake-related news will have to wait awhile still.

But at least it leaves me some time to put up another post.  And as a special bonus, I managed to already get Chloé down into bed on her own at 9pm, which is a new record.  So I actually have a bit of hands-free time before bed. Yay!!!

I made this recipe a few weeks back. I had made some Christmas cookies (that I still haven't posted!) and ended up with leftover icing.  And I really don't make much of anything that needs icing.  So I dug through some recipes and decided to make this applesauce snacking cake to use up the leftover icing I had.  So I didn't use the icing I'm including here with this recipe, but the one I used was similar.  

This recipe comes from Canadian Living's Best Muffins & More. I added a bit of ground flax seed to this, just replacing a bit of the all-purpose flour with flax (maybe 1/4-1/3 of the total amount of the all-purpose flour).  I also chose to make this in a bundt pan instead of the recommended pan, just 'cause I thought it'd make it look prettier.  I would probably normally just omit the icing if making this just for us, but it adds a nice touch for special occasions (and certainly makes it look nicer too!).

3/4 C all-purpose flour
2/3 C whole-wheat flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
pinch each ground cloves and salt
1 C applesauce
1/4 C packed brown sugar
1/4 C fancy molasses
1/4 C vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 C raisins

Icing:

2/3 C icing sugar
1 tbsp. apple juice

1.  In bowl, stir together all-purpose and whole-wheat flours, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and salt.  Whisk together applesauce, sugar, molasses, oil and eggs; pour over flour mixture along with raisins.  Stir together just until combined.

2.  Pour into greased 9-inch square cake pan, smoothing top.  Bake in 350 degree Farenheit oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until cake tester inserted in centre comes out clean.  Let cool in pan on rack.

Icing:  Whisk together icing sugar and juice; drizzle over cooled cake.  

Makes 16 servings.

Difficulty level: easy