My friend Beth is fantastic!
Super cool and super mom. Her story telling makes me laugh every time I visit and would be fun to read. Check out her guest post and you’ll see what I mean…plus the recipe is good. 
I love to bake, especially for other people, so when Cynthia asked me to write a guest post for her I knew it would have something to do with baking. I was thinking “maybe I can create a recipe; a ginger snap cake would be awesome!” After a few attempts I realized that it was going to be a while before I could create a recipe that I’d be willing to share with anyone, so, back to brainstorming.
Trying to come up with an idea is incredibly difficult with two very active toddlers running around.
Then it hit me, baking with kids! Since my son and niece are still a bit too young to help with the baking I had to borrow some kids to help out.
The next step was to figure out what to bake. Obviously something kid friendly, but I didn’t want to have to go out and buy a bunch of ingredients. While Liam and Lily were plotting world domination in their super-secret club house I took a look around the kitchen to see what I had on hand.
Apples! …that desperately needed to be used before they went bad. After a quick Google search I had a recipe for Cinnamon-Apple Cake that looked really tasty. Perfect! A few adjustments to the recipe I was ready to try it out. Liam and I met Logan and Lucas at Joyful Jumpers and began to bake.
Cinnamon-Apple Cake
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups sugar, divided
- ½ cup earth balance (or butter), softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 6 ounce block-style cream cheese, softened (about ¾ cup)
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 3 cups chopped peeled Rome apples (about 2 large) – I used Macintosh
- Cooking spray
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350⁰
The first thing I needed was my baking assistants, they were in charge of all the measuring and mixing.
I was just there to supervise. We washed our hands, always an important step, and we’re ready to go.
1. Peel and slice the apples. Since I hate peeling apples I borrowed two apple peeler/corer/slicers from my mom and let Logan and Lucas do it for me. They LOVED using these machines. Our apples were peeled and sliced in no time.
2. Beat 1 ½ cups sugar, earth balance, vanilla, and cream cheese at medium speed until well blended (about 4 minutes)
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to creamed mixture beating at low speed until blended. **remind your assistants not to put all the flour in at once, or you’ll have a flour explosion when you start mixing. While it might look cool, they won’t enjoy cleaning up the mess.**
5. Combine ¼ cup sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.
6. Add 2 tablespoons of cinnamon mixture to the apples, and stir into batter.
7. Pour batter into an 8-inch spring form pan coated with cooking spray and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon mixture.
8. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until cake pulls away from the sides of the pan. Cool the cake completely on a wire rack, and cut using a serrated knife.
We decided to make our cake into cupcakes so everyone could have their own cake. I thought that this would significantly reduce the cooking time, but sadly it did not. We baked them for about an hour.
While our cakes were baking we cleaned up our mess, I always make sure to tell any assistants I’m working with that cleaning up is part of baking and you can’t taste test until that’s done (my mom would be so proud of me!), and got everything ready to make cinnamon whipped cream to go on top.
I’m pretty sure making the whipped cream was the best part; we even received some extra help with the mixing and of course the taste testing J
The best tip I found for making whipped cream is to chill your bowl and beaters (if you’re using a hand mixer) or whisk attachment before you start the whipped cream. That way the cream will whip up faster and you’re not stuck there all day. I stick mine in the freezer for about 30 minutes.
Cinnamon Whipped Cream
- 1 cup chilled heavy cream
- ¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Pour heavy cream into a large bowl and beat with mixer until frothy and thick.
- Add sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon.
- Beat until medium peaks form.
Our cakes were done, the whipped cream was ready, and we had some extra taste testers to share with. Joyful Jumpers smelled delicious!! We served our cake with the whipped cream right on top and it was fantastic.
We enjoyed it so much that I forgot to take a picture, but if I had I’m sure Liam’s face would have looked like this:
