When I was a little girl, I would do whatever I could to get into the kitchen and bake with my mom.

For a while, I don’t think she really wanted me there. I asked too many questions, I made too many messes, I didn’t listen to directions well, and I’m pretty sure I was the most annoying child to have in the kitchen with you when you were actually attempting to make something that was- A.) edible and B.) would be appealing to the entire family and not just the crazy 5 year old who thought that sugar should be its own food group.

My mom’s answer to my constantly begging to make goodies in the kitchen was to give me outlets for my culinary creativity. Namely, the county fair baking competition.

For one week in August every year, the Clark County Fair would open and give me a chance to enter all sorts of baked goods that I’d tried to perfect during the rest of the year.

Most kids wanted to go to the fair for the rides or the cotton candy. Not me (ok, so maybe part of it was for the cotton candy). For months ahead of time Ineverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.com would be in the kitchen perfecting my recipes and presentation for the big show. I longed for the excitement of entering. The first sight of the entry book at the local pharmacy would send shivers up my spine, and I would be giddy from then until the final submission date.

I had competition fever.

Sure, there were hits, and of course… there were misses. PLENTY of misses. So many misses that I often questioned my ability to make anything that tasted good. It was the few that won that kept me going.

This is one of those recipes. Just like the Zucchini bread muffins and the Sugar plums, this is one of the recipes from the good ol’ family recipe book, so no creativity necessary for these babies.

Few things have changed since my great grandmother created these recipes, so they’re perfect for days like today, when I don’t have a creative bone in my body.

Applesauce and pecan spice cake with raspberry preserves and cream cheese icing.

4 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1-2 cups chopped pecans (you can use almonds or walnuts if you prefer)
1 cup oil
2 cups sugar
3 cups applesauce

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
In a large mixing bowl, mix all ingredients together and stir until smooth (with small bumps for the pecans, of course) spoon or pour into prepared muffin tins (will make about 36 standard size muffins or 24 standard plus 12+ mini muffins) or two well greased 9″ round cake pans.

Bake for 15-25 minutes for muffins (it took my oven about 20 minutes, but I’d check at 12 minutes just to be sure.) or 45 minutes+ for round cake pans.

Allow to fully cool before filling with raspberry jam (apple butter or apple sauce is also VERY tasty as filling) and either sprinkling with powdered sugar or icing with cream cheese icing (I used the cream cheese icing recipe posted here). Top with a pecan half and enjoy!

I did a few with the purple icing and the raspberry filling and the rest I left unfilled (because I’m lazy), and I topped them with uncoloured cream cheese icing. They were still pretty darn tasty.

They have pecans inside the batter in addition to the pecan half on the top. I sprinkled the icing with a little ground nutmeg and cinnamon as well.

I think I’ll feel more creative later on this week. Right now I’m still in “Christma-shock”, so I apologize for the boring tone of this post.

But really, you should totally make these cakes. They’re actually kind of healthy, so those of you whose New Years resolutions include eating healthier, these are totally up your alley.

Or maybe that’s just my great grandmother talking. After all, anything that has fruit in it HAS to be healthy, right? *smile*

-A.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 3:32 am and is filed under December 2007, The Cupcakes!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.