Apple Cream Cheese Bundt Cake

Hello and welcome to Adventures In Baking!  This weeks baked good definitely falls into the Adventure side of baking.  I generally start these posts with an enticing photo of the item in question.  This week however, I didn't want to scare you right at the start, so here's a warning before we get to the pictures:  This is one ugly cake!  Not in a 'so ugly it's cute' kinda way either.  It's just demoralizing to look at.  Once you stop laughing.  Take a look for yourself.

Photos don't really do it justice.  I should have taken one straight on at eye level so you could see how lumpy it is.  If you want to see a beautiful photo of the cake I was attempting to make go here.  Her cake is so pretty.  I had such high hopes. 

The ingredients.  Lots and lots of ingredients.  Surprisingly I had everything on hand except the apples and cream cheese. 

Let's get started.  First we're going to make the cream cheese filling.  Beat the cream cheese, butter and sugar until well combined and smooth.  Add the egg, flour, and vanilla and continue beating just until incorporated.  Set aside.

Next step.  In a large bowl, whisk the flour, both sugars, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, nutmeg and allspice together.  Add the eggs, oil, applesauce and vanilla and mix just until combined.
 

 

Fold in the pecans and chopped apples.

 

 

Final step.  Spoon about 2/3 of the cake batter into the prepared pan.  Top evenly with the cream cheese layer, leaving a border around the edge of the pan.  Top the filling with the remaining cake batter.  Bake.

The frosting.  Combine the brown sugar, butter and milk in a saucepan.  Set over medium heat and bring to a boil, whisking constantly.  Boil for 1 minute, whisking constantly.  Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla.

 

Whisk in the confectioners sugar a little at a time until it's completely incorporated and the frosting is smooth.  Gently stir until it starts to thicken then pour it over the cooled cake. 

 

Taste test.  It tastes amazing.  It looks ...... like I tried to glue it back together, lol!  Although I sprayed the bundt pan and let the cake cool before trying to extract it from the pan, let's just say it didn't go so well.  Part of the problem, I think, is that the cream cheese layer was too thick.  There wasn't enough cake baked around the cream cheese so when I turned the pan over to pop the cake out the bottom and the cream cheese were too heavy and separated from the top portion of the cake.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!    Anyway, like I said, it has great flavor and the applesauce in the batter keeps it moist.   My parents both agreed the frosting was too sweet and I thought it was too thick.  But it is concealing a mess and practically holding the cake together! 

 

The clean up.  Well, since we all agree the 'cake' portion is a winner, there are a few things I'd adjust if I were to make it again.  First, just use a regular cake pan.  And even without the bundt pan, I'd drop the cream cheese layer.    It didn't taste bad or anything, but it didn't seem to really add anything to it either.  I think using a regular pan would help the frosting situation also as it would be spread out across a larger area so it wouldn't be quite so thick. 

 

That's it for this week.  Check back next week for another Adventure In Baking!

-Teddra