{"id":852,"date":"2009-10-22T13:06:34","date_gmt":"2009-10-22T17:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/?p=852"},"modified":"2009-11-25T13:18:42","modified_gmt":"2009-11-25T17:18:42","slug":"an-apple-a-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/an-apple-a-day\/","title":{"rendered":"An Apple a Day…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in June, I decided to take a Wilton course at my local Michael’s in hopes of learning some nice decorating techniques for cakes. After taking Course 1, I quickly learned that you can’t do much great decorating without using butter cream icing; which works best for decorating purposes when it is made with vegetable shortening (GAG!).\u00a0 I decided that I wasn’t a big fan. I would much rather decorate a cake with things that actually taste good. I still use some of the techniques that I learned, but I try to avoid using the dreaded butter cream as much as possible. I tend to try and decorate with fruit, chocolate shavings, etc. I also sometimes choose to ice cakes in my preferred icing and then make a small batch of butter cream for the decorating.<\/p>\n

Anyway, since I love to bake and most people (mainly family) know I took that course, I am the first they come to when it is birthday cake time. So, when the Jewish holidays rolled around, my mother-in-law asked if I would mind making a birthday cake for her father instead of making a dessert for one of the holiday dinners. Of course I agreed. So now I needed to find a tasty cake that I thought everyone would love, but would also look like a birthday cake and allow for writing (without having to use the butter cream). It was also getting into the fall season, so I figured I would take that into mind as well.<\/p>\n

After doing a bit of searching I finally found a three layer apple cake by Martha Stewart<\/a>. It would look like a birthday cake, have fall flavors that I was sure most people would enjoy and I would top it with my favorite cream cheese icing that could still be used for some decorating purposes. I think I hit all of my goals! Most importantly avoiding the BC!<\/p>\n

The cake was moist and delicious; and everyone raved over how great it tasted. The only downfall I found was that it was a little hard to work with. The outside of the cake is quite sticky and the centers seemed to fall a bit, which makes it a bit difficult to stack without it all sticking to your hands and it requires a bit more frosting in the middle of each layer to compensate for the fallen centers. Overall though, I would make it again because it tasted great and had that homey, rustic feel to it. I think the cream cheese icing paired very nicely with it as well.<\/p>\n

\"CAKE2-CROPPED\"<\/p>\n

\"cake<\/p>\n

Three-Layer Apple Cake<\/h2>\n

Courtesy of MarthaStewart.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Cake<\/strong>
\n1\/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for pans
\n2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for pans
\n2 teaspoons baking soda
\n1\/2 teaspoon baking powder
\n2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
\n1\/2 teaspoon ground ginger
\n3\/4 teaspoon salt
\n2 cups packed light-brown sugar
\n2 large eggs
\n4 Granny Smith apples, peeled, two coarsely grated and two diced<\/p>\n

Icing<\/strong>
\nVanilla Cream Cheese icing<\/a> (from the Banana Bars recipe)<\/p>\n

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter three 8-inch-round cake pans (I used 9-inch b\/c that is what I had); line bottoms with parchment paper. Butter, then flour paper and sides (tapping out excess); set aside.<\/p>\n

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together butter, sugar, and eggs until well combined; fold in grated and diced apples. Add flour mixture; mix just until combined. Divide batter among prepared pans; smooth tops.<\/p>\n

Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool cakes in pans 20 minutes, then invert onto wire racks; peel off parchment. Invert cakes again, and let cool completely on racks.<\/p>\n

Assemble cake to your liking with Vanilla Cream Cheese Icing<\/a>.\u00a0 Refrigerate at least 1 hour (or up to 4 days). To serve, bring cake to room temperature; slice with a serrated knife.<\/p>\n

Yields: 12 servings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in June, I decided to take a Wilton course at my local Michael’s in hopes of learning some nice decorating techniques for cakes. After taking Course 1, I quickly learned that you can’t do much great decorating without using butter cream icing; which works best for decorating purposes when it is made with vegetable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,9,57,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cake","category-desserts","category-fall-inspired","category-icingglaze"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":861,"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852\/revisions\/861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietwoshoes.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}