This was THE best Christmas cake I've made to date.
It was sweet, but not too sweet. It was flavorful and balanced. And it was PURDY!
Kids and Adults alike loved it and it was gone after one day.
I'll be making it again just because I loved it so very, very much.
Ingredients:
Spice cake:
•2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
•1 1/2 tsp baking powder
•1 tsp baking soda
•1/2 tsp salt
•1 tbsp cinnamon
•1 tsp cardamom
•1 tsp ground ginger
•1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
•1/4 tsp ground clove
•2 cups light brown sugar, packed
•1 cup vegetable oil
•1 cup unsweetened apple sauce
•4 large eggs; room temperature
•3 tsp vanilla extract
•3/4 cup sour cream, room temperature
Apple Chai Cream Cheese Frosting:
• 5 cups powdered sugar
• 1 TBS vanilla extract
• 1 brick softened cream cheese
• 1/2 stick softened butter
• 1/2 cup chai concentrate
•1/4 cup apple cider
Garnish:
Fresh rosemary or pine
1/2 cup cranberries
6-10 blackberries
2 cinnamon sticks
2 orange slices
Directions:
Spice Cake-
•Preheat the oven to 350F and prep (2) 8″ round cake pans. Coat them with a thin layer of nonstick spray and line the bottom of the pans with a round sheet of parchment paper. simply trace your pan and cut it out. Easy peesy.
•In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. Set aside.
•In a larger mixing bowl, mix together the sugar, oil, and apple sauce until the sugar is evenly moistened. I used my stand mixer for this. You can do this by hand mixer.
•Whisk in the eggs, one by one, then add the vanilla.
•Once it is smooth, mix about half of the dry ingredients until well mixed. Next, incorporate the sour cream, then the dry ingredients.
•Your batter should appear runny; This is TOTALLY fine. You'll just pour it into the two cake pans, filling bith pans until youre about a 1/3 of the way from the top.
•Bake for 35-40 minutes or until it passes the toothpick test (poke a toothpick in the center comes out clean).
•Remove and let cool completely before glazing.
Apple Chai Cream Cheese Glaze-
•In a large mixing bowl, combine 1/2 cup of your favorite Chai Tea concentrate, 1/4 cup apple cider, 1 room temperature/softened brick of cream cheese, butter, and vanilla (I used Oregon Chai Concentrate and some Honey Crisp Cider. Also, to save on some calories, you can substitute cream cheese with neufetzle cheese. But hey, im not countong over here.).
• Once well mixed (may be a bit lumpy. We're shooting for a thin frosting/glaze so this will still be okay) add in a few table spoons of powered sugar at a time until it's all mixed in and smooth.
Frosted Cranberries and Orange slices.
•In a small sauce pan bring to boil 1 cup of water and 3/4 cup of sugar.
• Once boiling, cut heat and toss in cranberries and orange slices. Let sit removed from heat for about 8-10 minutes.
•remove from simple syrup and allow to cool for about an hour on a pastry cooling rack. Pro tip: line with parchment for easy clean up. As the fruit cooler it will become sticky.
• toss sticky fruit in granulated cane sugar and you have achieved your frosted look.
Assembly:
•Place small dollop of frosting on your plate. Then place first round on plate- this so hold cake in place. Ice the top of this round lightly.
• Stack next round and frost similarly being sure to bring frosting down the sides.
• scrape extra frosting to give a lightly frosted/ whimsical side appearance.
• arrange frosted berries on top. I used some fresh blackberries, pine needles, and cinnamon sticks to decorate as well.
Wahlah... you have a gorgeous cake thats even tastier than it looks!
**Tips- make sure all ingredients are room temp. Otherwise they won't blend in completely.