Apple Cakes with Caramel Glaze

Yet another week of Lodi apples from the CSA. These apples have such a short shelf life that if you don't find something to do with them fast, you'll end up throwing them out. They start to crack and go rotten quickly and a few of mine went into the compost.

I thought about making another pie with this batch but then decided that I would try a cake instead. This recipe was actually for a layered spice cake before I made a few changes. I decided to cook the apples into a sauce and use it in the cake. I caramelized my sugar and then added the peeled, cored and chopped apples. I coated them in the caramel and cooked them until they became soft and saucy.

I used a basic cake batter and added nutmeg, cinnamon, baking spice, and ginger. The home-made apple sauce made the batter very moist . I made sure there weren't any apple chunks in batter for fear that if there were, the eldest child would not eat it. Instead of making a layer cake, I used my mini bundt cake pans, one that I've had for a very long time and the other that I inherited from a friend. I still had to bake the cakes in two batches, though as my batter yielded 16 cakes.

Although I thought these cakes were very yummy on their own, I wanted to do some type of glaze to make them look prettier. So in a sauce pan I combined, brown sugar, heavy cream and butter, and cooked it until the sugar dissolved. What I ended up with was a caramel type sauce, that I poured over the tops of the cakes. These little cakes go perfectly with a cup a tea.