I was looking for a fall-themed cake to bring to a party, and the Spiced Applesauce Cake from the Smitten Kitchen blog looked tasty. The date of the party change and we didn’t end up going, so I made it for my book club a couple of weeks later. My original plan had been to scale up the recipe 1.5 times and do it in my bundt pan, and then try to thin out the frosting a little bit. But making it for book club simplified things a big as it meant I could just make it as written in my 9×9 pan.

This took a little longer to come together than I thought it would, but it wasn’t hard at all. I did consider making my own applesauce for this but in the end I did not. Instead, I bought applesauce from the orchard that comes to our farmer’s market, which is where I would have bought the apples anyway.

I wanted to take this out of the pan to serve it and I was worried about getting it out in one piece. I made a sling with parchment paper that was maybe 4-5 inches wide. After I buttered the pan, I patted the sling in place and then buttered the parchment.

I made the cake the day before we met, so it would have time to cool. The sling worked well to quickly lift it out of the pan. I left it on the counter overnight, on the serving dish with a layer of plastic wrap over the top. I thought some of the top would stick to the wrap and come off, but it did not!

The volume of frosting was pretty perfect. I let the cream cheese and butter soften for probably 90 minutes, and the frosting came together nicely. It was very soft and fluffy, and I swooshed it around on top of the cake until it looked good.

The cake was lovely. Moist and flavorful, and it got rave reviews from book club. I don’t know that the frosting would have worked well on a bundt cake, so if I wanted to make this for a party in the future I’d probably increase it by 1.5 and make it in a 9×13 pan. I think the only change I’d make is to add more walnuts.