Caramel Apple Spice Cake

There are those times when you have a sweet tooth, but you’re not craving chocolate. Trust me, I have plenty of said moments. When I do, I like to reach for something with apples in it. So, I thought to myself…what better way to incorporate one of my favorite fruits into a warm, wonderful dessert that is not a pie shell? Here is what I came up with:

Cinnamon spice and everything nice

I started by eyeballing around three tablespoons of ground cinnamon into my favorite spice cake box mix. After combining the dry ingredients, I added one cup of water and stirred.

Cinnamon Applesauce makes this cake even better

Rather than adding vegetable oil into the cake batter, I substituted cinnamon applesauce, 3/4 of a cup, to make the batter super rich, without the worry of excess fat and calories. The added texture of the applesauce really makes this cake something special. This is a trick that my late, great mother taught me a while ago, and I’ve stuck to it ever since. Trust me, people, I’ll never lead you astray in the kitchen.

Time to melt the caramels

Instead of weighing an already rich cake down with a mountain of frosting, I decided to keep it simple and dress it with a nice caramel sauce. Making a fresh sauce is easy, and certainly cheaper than buying the jarred stuff. Simply add a dozen caramels to a small saucepan with 1/2 cup of milk and two tablespoons of butter. Continuously watch this, folks, because you don’t want it to burn. Whisk it constantly to prevent sticking.

Batter is looking good

Let your batter rest for twenty minutes, allowing the applesauce to break down and really combine with the dry ingredients. While it rests, tend to that wonderfully luscious caramel sauce that’s on your stove top.

Sauce looks great

After your sauce is completed, reduce the heat to low, and keep an eye on it, occasionally stirring every five to ten minutes. Now, the apples can be prepared for the cake. For this recipe, I like to use a wonderful red delicious apple, but whatever you have on hand will work well. Peel, core, and dice your apples, and throw them into the bottom of a pre-greased 9×13 baking sheet.

Apple cutting time

Into the pan they go

(Rowen pro-tip: ALWAYS grease your pans with butter, not oil. The butter will add additional richness to your cakes that oil just can’t do.) Now, pour your batter on top of the apples, and bake the cake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for thirty minutes.

Oven ready

After ensuring the cake is completely cooked, drizzle the warm caramel sauce over the top. Is the cake absorbing the sauce? Wonderful, that’s what it’s supposed to do. Allow your cake to set for another few minutes, and then it will be ready to serve.

Time to eat!

Now, you don’t have to serve it exactly like I do, but I prefer serving this cake with a heaping scoop of quality vanilla bean ice cream. It’s also wonderful with whipped cream, or as a stand alone. Serve it however you’d like. I don’t judge.

Stay Hungry, Friends!

RS

Mumbo Gumbo

Everybody knows that I am in love with cajun food. So, naturally when my dad called me and said that we’d be having gumbo for Thanksgiving, in addition to the regular turkey, I was more than thrilled. The word “thrilled” is an understatement for how I actually felt. Prepping the gumbo takes forever and a day, so be ready to spend some time in the kitchen. It took Dad and I almost five hours to finish this meal. Here is how you get started.

Step 1: Bake the chicken wings. We used two dozen. Season them with salt and pepper, and bake them for twenty minutes at 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

Wings and Things

Step 2: Saute the okra. Okra is a dish commonly found in cajun cooking. If you can’t find it fresh, no problem. We bought the bag of whole okra in your grocery store’s frozen section. Dice it into small bite-sized pieces and cook in a large skillet, ensuring each side is browned slightly.

Diced Okra

Step 3: Slice the sausage. In my house, we like to use a nice, quality Andouille. Slice four sausages into rounds, and saute over medium heat, just to render the fat.

Andouille Sausage

Step 4: De-tail the shrimp. Dad decided to splurge and buy a pound of beautiful colossal shrimp. These were already peeled and de-veined, but we took the tails off too. Why bother with them when you’re trying to eat?

A small boatload of Shrimp

Now that the prepping steps are done, we can begin to assemble the gumbo. I’ve found that William’s makes a wonderful gumbo base. It contains most of the essential seasonings, including garlic powder and cayenne pepper.

Picked this up in Louisiana

Now, dice a red bell pepper, and set it aside. Fill a large stock pot with 1 cup of water,  3 cups of chicken stock, and add in the gumbo base. Now, throw in the bell pepper.

Dad chopping peppers

Dice an onion and a green pepper and add them into the pot. Stir, and set your heat on high to bring the mixture to a boil. Stir constantly. You don’t want the bottom of the stock pot to scald.

Everyone in the hot tub

Now, add in two heaping tablespoons of Louisiana Cajun Seasoning, and four bay leaves. Continue to stir as your gumbo comes to a boil.

Flavor time

Meanwhile, add in three cups of white rice to the pot. Let that broth do all of your flavoring. It’s packed full of flavor.

The flavorfied hot tub

Now that the gumbo has come to a boil, add in your okra, sausage, and chicken. Let the flavored broth infuse into the ingredients. Reduce the heat, and simmer for an hour. In the final ten minutes, add in the shrimp.

Rice is done

Finally, after all that hard work, the gumbo is ready to serve. Grab a bowl and a ladle, and dish up some cajun goodness.

Ready to eat

Stay Hungry, Friends!

RS

Chocolate Mocha Cake

You’ve been asking me for dessert recipes for a while now, so I decided to get into the kitchen and see what I could whip up. My challenge: flavorful and fabulous cakes for not a lot of cash money. Here is one of the two cakes I made. It’s a chocolate mocha cake with mocha cream cheese frosting. Here is how I did it.

Dry ingredients

Start by adding two scoops of cappucino powder to a triple chocolate cake box mix. Next, add one cup of mini chocolate chips to the dry ingredients, and stir. Make sure your dry ingredients are well combined.

Beating Eggs

Next, beat three eggs together and add them to the dry ingredients. (I personally like beating my eggs separately to save time mixing the entire bowl of batter.) Next, get out your milk.

Milk in the bowl

Add 1.5 cups of milk to the batter bowl, and stir the dry and wet ingredients together. Make sure there are no lumps in your batter. Silky smooth is what we’re looking for.

Cake overview

Grease a 13×9 baking sheet with butter, and pour just enough batter in to coat the bottom. We’re about to do something very crazy here. But trust me, I’ll never lead you astray in the kitchen.

Warning: Chocolate Overload

Yes, people I went there. I am adding in sweet buttercream, chocolate covered bon bons. Line them up neatly like so:

Deliciousness

Now, finish pouring the batter in the pan, and smooth it out evenly, ensuring that all of the bon bons are covered. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Where did they go?

Bake the cake for 25-30 minutes. (Rowen pro-tip: to ensure that our cake is done, stick a toothpick in the middle. When you pull it out, it should be completely clean. If so, your cake is ready to go.

Cake is out of the oven

I love making my own frosting, because I can control the sugar content. I also really enjoy fresh frosting. It’s something that sets a cake off. Here is how I frosted this sucker:

Yum, frosting!

I took one package of softened cream cheese, two scoops of cappucino powder, a tablespoon of honey, and two tablespoons of hot water. Mix the ingredients together until smooth. Sounds good, yeah? Yeah!

Ready to eat

After letting the cake cool for fifteen minutes, frost it. After I took this cake over to my fraternity’s “Latesgiving” party, it was gone in a matter of minutes. Try making this cake for your family and friends. I bet they’ll love it!

Stay Hungry, Friends

RS