Caramel Apple Coffee Cake

Welcome to a new book year of The Cake Slice Bakers on my blog!  Once a year we vote on and select a cake cookbook that we bake a recipe from of each month.  For the next year we will be baking from The Southern Cake Book Paperback by The Editors of Southern Living Magazine.  We are all excited to be baking from this new cake book choice.

This month we had our choice of which cake to bake.  We got to pick from: 

Rum-Glazed Sweet Potato Cakes

Caramel Apple Coffee Cake

Cranberry Apple Pumpkin Bundt

Orange Pecan Spice Pound Cake

I haven't done a coffee cake in a while so decided to give that one a go... apples and caramel, yum!

The first thing we needed to do is make the caramel sauce and set it aside.  Then onto the apples for the middle layer of the coffee cake.  The recipe calls for the apples to be peeled, cored and sliced then sauteed in a bit of butter.  You want to let the sauteed apples to sit and cool while you work on the rest of the recipe. 

I found in the end product that the apples were mushy and I would most likely skip this step if I make this coffee cake again.

Onto the streusel topping made up of sugars, pecans, cinnamon, flour and butter.  Simply stir it together and set to the side.  

Time to mix the cake portion of the recipe.  One thing that I hate in the morning is the see the phrase 'softened butter'.  I have barely finished my first cup of coffee and you want me to have had enough brain power to have taken out butter to soften a half hour before?  Yeah, no. 

A good workaround is to cut up your butter in thin pieces, spread them out in your bowl and the butter will be ready for creaming in about 10 minutes.... enough time to brew another cup of coffee.... ahhh.

Mixing together your cake is pretty basic.  Cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs and then mix in the dry alternating with the mix.  Spoon the batter into a greased spingform pan.  Time to add the apples to the top of the batter.  I found that distributing them by hand was the easiest.

Crumble to streusel all of the top of the apples, then drizzle about 1/2 a cup of the caramel sauce over the streusel.  Time to go in the oven.

This coffeecake takes over an hour to bake and comes out nicely browned.  Time for it to sit and cool.

After it cools for a bit it is time for it to be unmolded.  The pan is so full the the topping has baked over the edge and this makes getting the ring off quite difficult along with messy.

The cake also stuck quite firmly to the ring.  

It would be best to use a 10" pan instead of a 9" like the recipe called for and line the ring with parchment.  Be sure to adjust your baking time if you do change your pan size.

After it cools for an hour it is time to serve the coffee cake.  Unfortunately this coffee cake does not cut and serve cleanly due to the topping being solid and hard to cut through.

Caramel Apple Coffee Cake

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/caramel-apple-coffee-cake

Yield: Makes 8 to 10 servings

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter

3 cups peeled and sliced Granny Smith apples (about 3 large)

Streusel Topping*

Caramel Suace*

1/2 cup butter, softened 

1 cup sugar 

2 large eggs 

2 cups all-purpose flour 

2 teaspoons baking powder 

1/2 teaspoon salt 

2/3 cup milk 

2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Melt 2 Tbsp. butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat; add apples; sauté 5 minutes or until softened. Remove from heat; cool completely (about 30 minutes).

2. Meanwhile, prepare Streusel Topping and Caramel Sauce. Reserve 1/2 cup Caramel Sauce for another use.

3. Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy; gradually add sugar, beating well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition.

4. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt; add to butter mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed until blended after each addition. Stir in vanilla. Pour batter into a greased and floured shiny 9-inch springform pan; top with apples. Drizzle with 1/2 cup Caramel Sauce; sprinkle with Streusel Topping.

5. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes. Cover loosely with aluminum foil to prevent excessive browning; bake 25 to 30 minutes or until center is set. (A wooden pick will not come out clean.) Cool in pan on a wire rack 30 minutes; remove sides of pan. Cool completely on wire rack (about 1 1/2 hours). Drizzle with 1/2 cup Caramel Sauce.

*Caramel Suace - makes about 1 1/2 cups

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar 

1/2 cup butter 

1/4 cup whipping cream 

1/4 cup honey 

Bring brown sugar, butter, whipping cream, and honey to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring constantly; boil, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Remove from heat, and cool 15 minutes before serving. Store in an airtight container in refrigerator up to 1 week. To reheat, microwave at HIGH 10 to 15 seconds or just until warm; stir until smooth.

*Streusel Topping

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 

1 cup chopped pecans 

1/2 cup butter, melted 

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar 

1/4 cup granulated sugar 

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 

1/4 teaspoon salt 

Stir together flour, pecans, melted butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, and salt until blended. Let stand 30 minutes or until firm enough to crumble into small pieces.

The Caramel Apple Coffee Cake was voted quite tasty and the whole family enjoyed a piece of the cake.  But none of us felt that extra caramel sauce was needed and that the apples were too mushy.  

I felt that it was good but not worth the four hours it took to get to eat it.  I think with some adjustments it would be a great coffee cake.

Check out all of The Cake Slice Bakers @ the blogroll, the links below & like us on Facebook.

An InLinkz Link-up

Happy Baking!

:)

Chewy Chocolate Nut Cake

Cake Slice Baker time!  

The Cake Slice Bakers bake from one cake cookbook each year.  Each month we are offered three or four choices from the book and we vote on which to bake.  The current cookbook is Great Cakes by Carole Walter.  We have recently voted on what book to bake from in the upcoming year and I am not able to reveal it until it the group reveals it at the same time but I am so looking forward to baking from the new book.  ;)

If you would like to join our group please head over to http://thecakesliceblogroll.blogspot.com/ and drop a note to one of our awesome staffers and they will get you started.

This month we had the choice of Banana Nut Cake, Sesame Almond Swirl, Chewy Chocolate Nut Cake and Blueberry crumb squares.  The Chewy Chocolate Nut cake sounded a bit different so that was our choice this month.

We start off by making the chewy chocolate nut mixture.

All I had on hand was pecan halves, not pieces.  It was a bit sad to chop them up so.

Once the pecans, cocoa, sugars, salt, butter and corn syrup were all mixed up, half of it was pressed into the bottom of a springform pan.  The other half set aside to be added as a layer later.

The key to a good cake batter is getting the butter sugar mixture super creamy and light.

Half of the batter is spooned over the crust layer.  Then you add the chocolate in a crumble all over and top with the second half of batter.

I spooned the batter over the crumble layer but left about two tablespoons in the bowl.  That way once it was smoothed out I could add more batter to that area to cover nicely.

I baked this cake for an extra 10 minutes before the tester came out clean.  The cake came out very puffed up but slowly sank as it cooled down.

The instructions tell you to invert the cake onto your serving platter.  That covered up the sunken top.

Upside down looked good but It didn't cut nicely.  And this was at room temperature.  I don't think it would fair well if chilled at all.

The cake served up ok.  The cake part was light and had good flavor.  The chocolate part was good also and the nuts gave the cake a much needed texture boost.

Check out all of The Cake Slice Bakers @ the blogroll, the links below & like us on Facebook.

An InLinkz Link-up

:)

Enjoy!

Maple Pecan Chiffon Cake

Happy August to y'all!

This month has been a busy one that includes my oldest son turning 22 just a few days ago.  Crazy to think that he is that old... that I am that old ha!  You don't want to hear about my oldness - you came to see what cake the Cake Slice bakers whipped up this month so let's get going....

The August choice for the Cake Slice Bakers is the Maple Pecan Chiffon Cake with Brown Butter Icing from Vintage Cakes.   What is the Cake Slice Bakers you ask?  Well we are a group of blogging bakers that are baking a cake each month out of a specific cookbook.  This year of baking is being done from  Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson.  It is a great group of gals to bake with!  Be sure to check out all of their yummy blogs.  

This cake is supposed to be baked in a tube pan or angel food cake pan.  Since I can't seem to leave well enough alone I choose to bake it in a sheet pan.  I also decided that since it is just the boys and me home right now - Hubster is working extra shifts... well someone has to pay for my extra cooking essentials and Jeep parts!  Oh did that actually get typed?  Oh... where were we?  Since it is just the boys and me home I decided to make a half recipe.  Plus it gave me a good excuse to use my new shiny quarter sheet pans.  ;)

First I made the icing.  BB icing can be tricky sometimes.  One thing I have found that really helps with consistent results is allowing the browned butter to cool before whipping it up with the sugar.

The recipe called for unsalted butter.  I have found that I prefer to use salted butter and forgo the pinch of salt at the end.  I also like to use the browned bits that are sitting in the bottom of the pan.  They give the icing such a nice flavor and homey touch to the icing.  If you refrigerate your icing you will need to let it sit out for about 15 minutes before use.  You will also want to fluff it.

To make the chiffon cake you will want to butter and parchment the bottom only of your cake pan.  With chiffon or egg white cakes you should not grease the sides of your pan.  The cake actually uses the ungreased sides to grab onto and hold for rising while baking.

Don't forget the trick of buttering your pan, lay in your paper then flip your paper over so both sides are coated with butter.

This cake has four components ~ dry, wet, whipped whites and nuts.  If you read your recipe and mise-en-place your cake will come together nicely.

Start with your dry ingredients.  Sift together your flour, salt and baking powder, then whisk in the brown sugar. The recipe calls for light brown sugar but I choose to use dark brown sugar.

In another bowl whisk together the egg yolks, oil, maple syrup, water and vanilla.  A tip for you - the recipe called for the same amount of oil and syrup so I measured the oil first then the syrup.  Since the measure had the oil into it first the syrup slid right out down to the last drop!

Get your egg whites whipping.  First on medium until foamy, add in the cream of tarter.  Then get them to a nice soft peak and slowly add in your sugar.  Crank up the mixer and within just a minute your egg whites will be shiny and luscious looking.   

With as few strokes as possible combine the dry and wet ingredients.  Now it is time to fold the mixture with the egg whites.  Place about half of the whites in with your mixture and fold them together.

Now add the lightened mixture back to the whites and finish folding until just combined and you don't see any large streaks of white.  Now add your toasted nuts and finish combining all together.

I ended up diving the batter between two sheet pans.  Smoothed out the tops and popped them into the oven.

This way of baking the cake took much less time... only about 20 minutes.  Gee can you tell where the nuts are in the cake?  ha!

I didn't want them to sink too far so I inverted them on top of a cooling rack and let them cool completely.

The cakes both fell out of the pans but held up very well.  Time to build my cake.  I decided to cut it into four pieces.  I am not good at the eyeballing thing so out comes the ruler.

Peel the first layer off of the paper and place onto the plate.  

Tip alert - yep I am full of them today.  Place the blade of your off set spatula into a glass of hot water.  When you are ready to frost your cake wipe it off and frost until your frosting starts to stick a bit.  Place it back in the water to reheat, dry and back to frosting.

Continue to stack and frost all of the layers.

Once you have all of it frosted put your cake into the refrigerator for at least half an hour before slicing and serving.

We found the cake to be light and tasty.  I do think that without using the dark brown sugar the flavor may have been a bit too understated.  The BB frosting really helped boost the cake flavor.  I don't think I would make this cake as a full sized cake but as thin layers it worked out.

The Maple Pecan Chiffon Cake with Brown Butter Icing recipe can be found in Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson.  (I have no association with her or her cookbook sales.)

Check out all of The Cake Slice Bakers @ the blogroll & like us on Facebook.

Enjoy!

:)