Recipe Experimenting: Caramel Apple Spice Cake

My latest creation, like the carrot cake, was not as much about the decorating as it was the baking, because I would like to perfect that art as well. I've tried a little experimenting with recipes in the past, but nothing major, as I know it can be very hard to do with baked goods. However, I was recently inspired to just go for it, and see if I'm any good at it.

I had seen this particular recipe on Pinterest that sounded pretty tasty, so I clicked on it and read through it. It seemed interesting, to say the least, but I was still intrigued. Then, as I continued to look through it, I noticed that the ratings were not good (an average of 2 out of 5 stars). So I started reading the reviews, and most people said it turned out really dry or they just didn't care much for some of the flavor combinations. I looked back through the recipe again and I did notice that some of the proportions seemed a little off. That was when I decided to take what I know about cake recipes and modify this one to improve it.

My goal was to make it a kind of cake that I would want to eat, with all the right flavors, and to change the texture to something more moist and fluffy. First I got rid of chocolate chips. They just didn't seem to fit with apple flavor. The mocha sounded like it might taste okay, but a little risky. I opted to replace it with caramel extract, knowing that my main goal for this first round was to fix the texture, just to avoid having too many different variables affecting the outcome.

I then decreased the amount of flour, while increasing the amount of eggs, as the right balance between these two ingredients help create the best height and texture for a cake. I decreased the amount of apples, because fruit adds a lot of water to a cake, and you need the right balance between wet and dry ingredients as well. I also added some butter extract, because I love butter flavor in cakes, but I think oil makes it more moist, which is why I stuck with the oil.

It turned out AMAZING! The cake was so moist, it would just melt in your mouth. The frosting, which I had never made before, was some of the best I had ever had! It was a browned butter frosting, which is basically regular buttercream frosting except you brown the butter on the stove first and then let it solidify again before using it in the recipe. All the flavors were great together.

Finished Apple Cake - already partially devoured!

I decided to call it Caramel Apple Spice Cake. I landed on "spice cake" because of the fact that it has the cinnamon and nutmeg. I think I might try adding some ginger one of these times too. Overall, I'd say it was a pretty successful experiment, especially for my first try!