Oct 16, 2024
Note: First attempt at recreating one of the flavors of our wedding cake. Hopefully going to remake it every year and improve upon it.
Apple Butter Cake Ingredients:
16 tablespoons (226g) Unsalted Butter, room temperature
4 large Eggs, room temperature 2 teaspoons Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Table Salt
4 teaspoons Baking Powder 3½ cups Cake Flour 2 cups (510g) Apple Butter
Apple Butter Cake Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Lightly grease two 9" round pans.
In a large bowl, cream the butter.
Add the eggs and beat well.
In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients.
Add the dry ingredients alternately with the apple butter to the creamed mixture.
Divide the batter equally between the pans and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the center reaches 210°F (100°C).
Remove from the oven and, after 10 minutes, turn the cake out of the pan onto a rack to cool completely.
Store, wrapped in plastic wrap, at room temperature for 3 days, or freeze for up to 3 months.
Caramel Ingredients:
2 large Apples, minced
1¼ cups (250g) White Sugar
½ teaspoon Kosher Salt
1 cup (225g) Heavy Whipping Cream
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Caramel Directions:
In a 3-quart stainless steel saucier, combine apple, sugar, salt, and just enough water to moisten if needed over medium heat. Stir with a fork until syrup comes to a boil, about 4 minutes, then simmer without stirring until syrup is honey-colored, roughly 6 minutes, shaking and swirling as needed to ensure even caramelization. Continue cooking until syrup is light to medium amber, a minute more. Immediately add cream and reduce heat to medium-low.
Stirring constantly with a heat-resistant spatula to knock back the foam, simmer until caramel registers 225°F (107°C) on a digital thermometer, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a heat-resistant container, stir in vanilla extract (if using), and cool to room temperature. Caramel will be runny while warm, but thicken as it cools, turning just a little chewy when cold. Refrigerate up to 1 month in an airtight container.
Cinnamon Mousse Ingredients:
3 teaspoons Unflavored Gelatin
1½ cups Whole Milk
1½ teaspoons Cinnamon
3 Eggs, separated
5 tablespoons White Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
¼ teaspoon Instant Vanilla Pudding
Cinnamon Mousse Directions:
In small bowl, sprinkle gelatin over 3 tablespoons water; let stand for 5 minutes to soften.
Meanwhile, in small heavy saucepan, heat milk and cinnamon over medium heat until bubbles form around edge.
In bowl, whisk egg yolks with sugar; whisk in hot milk. Return to saucepan and cook, stirring, over medium-low heat until mixture is thick enough to coat back of spoon, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Add softened gelatin; stir until dissolved. Add vanilla. Pour into large bowl. Place plastic wrap directly on surface; refrigerate, stirring twice, until consistency of egg whites, about 1 hour.
In one bowl, whip egg whites to stiff peaks. In a second bowl, sprinkle instant pudding over heavy cream and whip. Fold one-quarter of egg whites and whipped cream into gelatin mixture. Fold in remaining eggs and whipped cream. Use mousse to to frost the cake before it sets.
Final Notes:
Cake
I removed the sugar and spices from the recipe since my homemade apple butter is sweetened and spiced. It ended up a nice level of not very sweet.
The cake tastes good, but mostly just of spice and not much of apple. Kinda like a gingerbread cake. Next time I would try adding either thin slices or grated apple. The cake was kind of dry too, so an apple would help.
The cake was also a bit denser than I expected it to be, not sure if the liquid of an added apple would help with that or not.
I might try adding ¼ of the apple butter to be creamed with the butter, since there is no sugar cream with it.
Caramel
The caramel recipe made WAY more than I needed, I think I used about a fourth of it for the cake.
Next time, I would follow the recipe and use water (not an apple) and quarter the original recipe. But I'd still mix that with a minced apple.
This time it would have been nice to have a thinner caramel that would have soaked into the cake more, but maybe that wouldn't be as necessary if there was an apple in the cake.
Mousse
Instant pudding and whipped egg whites were added for stability since the mousse was between layers of cake and had to hold for a couple of days while we worked on finishing the cake.
The only change I would make next time would be to be sure to whip the cream and egg whites into the milk mixture when it has the raw egg white consistency. I let it (the gelatin) set and my mousse was lumpy.
Overall
I'd love to try 8" cakes and piping the mousse to set in my 9" pan. Hopefully making a thicker, neater mousse coating.
Dry apple butter cake and lumpy cinnamon mousse.... Still ended up tasty.
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