Spiced Pumpkin Cake with Caramilized Apples and Cream Cheese Frosting

My computer blew up two weeks ago. It wasn't even that old - only 6 years. These electronics. Sometimes I wonder if the manufacturers put inside them timers. When certain pre-determined date is up, it just stops working.

I managed to get it to work again by wiping out everything and reinstalling the operating system - a great meditation on letting go... (Well not really, I have all my data backed up.)



When this cake was first requested for a birthday party, I said WHAT??!! Pumpkin and apples in the same cake? But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. They both go well with Fall spices like cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. And with lots of butter and sugar, everything will taste good. I decided to make pumpkin cakes layered with caramelized apples and frosted with cream cheese frosting. The result was pretty impressive. Caramelized apples kept the cake moist. Very lightly sweetened cream cheese frosting added the right touch of tang and smoothness to the spiced cake.



Spiced Pumpkin Cake
Adapted from Spiced Pumpkin Cake with Caramel Icing on Epicurious.com

• 3 cups all purpose flour


• 2 teaspoons baking powder


• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon


• 1 teaspoon ground ginger


• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg


• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 2 sticks butter - at room temperature


• 2 cups sugar


• 4 eggs


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 1 15oz. can pumpkin

Caramlized Apples

• 2 small apples - diced (I used Honey Crisp.)


• 2 tablespoons sugar


• 1 tablespoon butter

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 2 sticks butter at room temperature


• 2 packages cream cheese at room temperature


• 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups confectioner sugar

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and line the bottom of three 9-inch round cake pans with parchment paper. (I made one two-layer cake and one single layer cake.)


2. Combine flour, baking powder, all the spices and salt in a clean bowl.


3. With an electric mixer, beat 2 sticks of butter and 2 cups of sugar together until fluffy - about 3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time. Beat well between addition. Scrape the bowl occasionally.


4. Stir in the flour/spice mixture alternately with pumpkin in 3 batches until well blended.


5. Divide the batter into the prepared pan. Spread the batter to get flat surface. Bake for 30 minutes. Rotate the pan after 20 minutes. Turn the cakes on cooling racks and let cool completely.


6. For caramelized apple, cook diced apples with 1 tablespoon butter and sugar in a saucepan. Stir occasionally until the apples are tender about 5 minutes. Let cool in the pan


7. After the cakes cool, beat 2 sticks of butter and 2 packages of cream cheese together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add confectioner sugar. Slowly increase the mixing speed until every thing is combined.


8. To assemble the cake, spoon cream cheese frosting onto the outer edges of the bottom cake layer, pour apples in the middle. Stack the second cake layer on top. Repeat with the second layer if you are making 3 layered cake. Otherwise, frost with the rest of frosting.