Missing Finger Chocolate Cake

We are not a family of cake lovers. In fact, we almost always have ice cream cakes for our birthdays.  But if ice cream is not an option, this is the cake we opt for. It is moist, dense, chocolatey, and has frosting that is good enough to eat alone. (OK, the cake is really just an excuse to eat the frosting.) And as good luck would have it, this cake is made with apples. They don’t really add flavor, and you can’t tell they are there, but they keep the cake from drying out which is worth all the effort of grating them. Make it the day before you want to serve it as the flavors improve overnight.

Oh, if you’re wondering about the name, that’s a long family story.

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Cake Ingredients:

  • 2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature

  • 2 cups sugar

  • 3 eggs

  • 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

  • 3 Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder

  • 1 tsp salt

  • 1 tsp cinnamon

  • 1 tsp allspice

  • 2 tsp baking soda

  • ¼ cup hot water

  • 3 cups apples – peeled and grated

Cake Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 10” bundt pan.

  2. Cream butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until pale yellow and light.  Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each. Beat the mixture till light and fluffy.

  3. Sift flour, cocoa, salt and spices together.

  4. Add the baking soda to the hot water, and mix till dissolved.  

  5. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture alternately with the soda mixture.  Begin and end with the dry ingredients.

  6. Stir in the grated apples.

  7. Spoon the batter into the bundt pan.  Bake until the cake is dark brown and springs bake when lightly pushed, about 70 minutes.

  8. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes.  Unmold from the pan and invert onto a serving plate.  Allow the cake to cool before frosting. (You can make this cake without the frosting, but I can’t imagine why you would.)

Caramel Frosting Ingredients:

  • 8 TBS unsalted butter

  • ½ cup packed, dark brown sugar

  • 2 Tbs milk

  • 1 cup plus 2 Tbs confectioners’ sugar

  • ½ tsp vanilla

Caramel Frosting Directions:

  1. Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat.  

  2. Stir in the brown sugar, reduce heat to low, and cook until the sugar melts and begins to get ropey – about two minutes.  Keep stirring while the sugar bubbles.

  3. Stir in the milk, and raise the heat to medium.  Stir until the mixture comes to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat, and allow the mixture to cool to lukewarm.

  4. Whisk in the confectioners’ sugar ½ cup at a time.  Continue whisking until it is smooth and spreadable.  (If your sugar is clumpy, you may have to sift it before adding.) Whisk in the vanilla, and use immediately.

  5. Most likely you will have to spoon this over the cake.  It will look like way too much, but trust me, it’s not. Use it all.  People will fight to get to scrape off what spills down onto the plate.