The calendar on my wall tells me that fall has arrived, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way. With temperatures still in the high 90s and low 100s, I’m just trying to survive the extended Sacramento summer heat. Nevertheless, I tried to get into an autumnal frame of mind by taking my mom and sister apple picking in Placerville. There’s an area called Apple Hill, which is known for its apple farms. Mama Lin loves going to fruit orchards and was looking forward to this apple picking excursion. Unfortunately, after driving to several apple farms, we couldn’t find any you-pick apple farms that still had apples! Although we didn’t get to pick our own apples that day, I baked this apple spice cake to get my mom and sister into the fall spirit. Whenever I make desserts for my mom, I try not to use too much sugar, or else she’d complain about the sweetness. This miso apple spice cake has just the right amount of sweetness and it’s rich with layers of flavor, from warm fall spices, miso, and rum. I’m glad to report that Mama Lin approves this apple spice cake!
COOKING NOTES FOR APPLE SPICE CAKE
USING BOB’S RED MILL FLOUR
Bob’s Red Mill Organic Unbleached White All-Purpose Flour is my go-to flour for recipe development and general cooking. It is a versatile flour that’s good for a variety of my recipes, such as dumpling wrappers, noodles, milk bread, mooncakes, and ginger and sesame cookies. It is a quality flour that produces consistent results and it’s very convenient to find. In this recipe, the Bob’s Red Mill all-purpose flour gives the cake a nice crumb.
SPICE BLEND FOR CAKE
This apple cake is seasoned with a blend of cinnamon, coriander, ginger, and cardamom. Apple desserts are often flavored with a heavy dose of cinnamon. While I enjoy that flavor combination, I wanted to come up with a different blend of spices that evoked fall flavors without being cinnamon dominant. We often use ground coriander in savory recipes, but this Stone Fruit Upside-Down Cake from Asha Loupy opened my mind to using coriander in desserts. In that recipe, Asha adds freshly ground coriander seeds to the batter to give the cake a subtle earthy and citrusy note. When I added ground coriander to the spice blend in this apple spice cake, I thought the coriander complemented the cinnamon and other spices very well. For those of you who find cilantro soapy, you may feel the same way about coriander. If that is the case, feel free to substitute the coriander with another teaspoon of cinnamon or a blend of 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger.
LAYERING CAKE WITH MISO AND RUM
I wanted to add layers of flavor to enhance the warm fall spices in the cake. First, I added white miso to the batter and caramel glaze at the top. The miso gives the cake rich umami flavor and balances out the sugars in the cake very nicely. To give the cake more depth, I added 1 1/2 tablespoons of dark rum. The hint of rum is so nice against the spices of the cake. You’ll be able to taste the rum flavor more when you eat the cake the day it’s made. The next day, the rum flavor will mellow out. If you don’t have dark rum around the house, you can substitute it with 2 teaspoons of rum extract or just add another teaspoon of vanilla extract to the cake.
WHAT KIND OF APPLES TO USE
You’ll need 2 medium apples for the cake’s topping. To make the cake more visually interesting, I made a cross hatch pattern using apple slices from 1 green apple and 1 red apple. You can use any apples you like, but here are my suggestions. Granny Smiths and Mutsu apples are great green apple options. In terms of red apples, Gala and Honeycrisp apples retained their vibrant red color the best during my recipe testing. Note that not all honeycrisp apples are red throughout the apple. It depends on how much sunshine the apples were exposed to–more sun means redder honeycrisp apples. When buying Honeycrisp apples for this recipe, I selected ones that were red all around, like you see in the photo above.
APPLES & OXIDATION
The sliced apples will oxidize and brown between the time you slice the apples and when you place them over the batter. You can reduce some of that browning by squeezing lemon juice over the sliced apples. However, I don’t think this is entirely necessary, as the apples will brown during the baking process anyway. For one of my test batches, I omitted lemon juice and didn’t notice too much of a difference to the finished cake.
CARAMEL GLAZE
Before baking the cake, I brush the apples with a butter, sugar, and miso glaze. This caramel-like glaze serves the dual purpose of giving the cake more flavor and helps to keep the apples from drying out and shriveling during the baking process. This caramel glaze hardens pretty quickly, so I recommend making it after you have laid the apple slices over the batter. As soon as you finish making the glaze in a saucepan, brush the glaze over the apples.
HOW TO REHEAT THE APPLE SPICE CAKE
If you can’t finish the cake in one day, refrigerate the leftovers for 4 to 5 days. Reheat the cake in the oven preheated at 350ºF (175ºC) for 8 to 10 minutes. The edges of the cake develop a harder crust during this reheating process, which I love. You can also freeze any leftovers for several months. Reheat the cake in the oven at 350ºF for 12 to 14 minutes (assuming that you cut the cake into sections before freezing). There’s no need to defrost the cake first.
MORE RECIPES USING BOB’S RED MILL ALL-PURPOSE FLOUR
Thin Ginger & Sesame Cookies Chinese Chive Boxes Japanese Milk Bread (Shokupan) Pumpkin Scallion Pancakes Homemade Noodles with Spicy Peanut Sauce
Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Bob’s Red Mill! To learn more about their products and to get more recipe inspiration, follow them on Instagram or Facebook.
