Bready or Not Original: Easy Apple Cinnamon Cake
Easy Apple Cake! This delicious cake is great to bake up, slice, and store in the fridge or freezer to enjoy for weeks to come.
If this recipe looks familiar, it’s because this is a rewrite of a recipe I posted back in 2016. The original version asked the baker to arrange the apple pieces in the middle and again on top.
After making this cake many, many times, I realized that was an unnecessarily fussy step. Ain’t nobody got time for that!
I started folding all of the apple chunks into the batter, and this saved a lot of time. The apples were perfectly distributed and the taste was the exact same.
This cake remains a very favorite for both my husband and my dad. They’ll eat it for breakfast, snack, or dessert.
When I travel back home to California, I always make this cake for my dad. Since my mom doesn’t stock baking ingredients, I measure up my own (one sandwich baggy with brown sugar and cinnamon; another with flour, baking soda, and salt; one more with white sugar) and whip him up a cake in no time!
Bready or Not Original: Easy Apple Cinnamon Cake
Ingredients
- 3 medium apples peeled, cored, & chopped into small chunks
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon heaping
- 1/4 cup brown sugar packed
- 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1/3 cup sour cream or Greek yogurt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 eggs room temperature
- turbinado or maple sugar for topping optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Line a 9×9 square pan with foil and apply butter or nonstick spray.
- In a medium bowl, toss peeled and chopped apples with cinnamon and brown sugar.
- In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- In a larger mixing bowl, whisk together the white sugar, vegetable oil, sour cream/yogurt, and vanilla extract until it's smooth. Add the eggs.
- Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until everything is just mixed. Fold in the apple chunks.
- Pour batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle turbinado or maple sugar over top, if desired.
- Bake 1 hour, until it passes the toothpick test in middle. Cool completely, chilling in fridge if desired. Use foil to list contents onto a cutting board. Cut into pieces.
- These are great individually plastic wrapped and stored at room temperature or in the fridge; bars can be frozen and keep well for months. Eat from the fridge, or at room temperature, or warm in the microwave or oven. However you eat it, it'll be delicious!
- OM NOM NOM!
Bready or Not: Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bars
These are not mere blondies. No, these Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bars are practically cake.
Seriously, this could work as a birthday cake for a chocolate-peanut butter lover. These bars are THICK and loaded with goodness.
This recipe makes a full 13 by 9 pan, so there’s plenty to share. As dense as each bar is, you probably don’t want to cut them large.
Bars like this freeze very well, too, so you can stash some away to enjoy later.
I can’t help but wonder how this recipe would be with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups chopped into it, too. I should try that sometime.
Recipes are stories. There will always be other ways to twist them into something new and enjoyable.
Bready or Not: Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bars
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 1 cup brown sugar packed
- 1/4 cup white granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup vanilla Greek yogurt
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 3/4 cups peanut butter chips 1 bag
- 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup chopped peanuts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven at 350-degrees. Line a 13X9 baking with aluminum foil and apply nonstick spray or butter.
- In a big bowl, cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, scraping the bowl as necessary.
- Add the vanilla extract and vanilla yogurt next, followed by the flour, cinnamon, and baking powder. Fold in the peanut butter chips and 1 cup of the chocolate chips.
- Scoop the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips and the peanuts over the top and gently press them in.
- Bake pan for 30 minutes or until the center passes the toothpick test. Let cool completely. Use foil to lift contents onto a cutting board to slice into bars.
- Store in a sealed container at room temperature or in the fridge. Freeze bars between waxed paper in a sealed container to make them last even longer.
- OM NOM NOM!
Bready or Not Original: Glazed Earl Grey Maple Gingerbread Sheet Cake
Let’s kick off the 2018 holiday season the right way: with cake! A Glazed Earl Grey Maple Gingerbread Sheet Cake, to be exact.
Earl Grey adds a lovely spice and kick that contrasts and complements the sweetness of maple. As you can see, tea flecks freckle the entire cake.
The cake is super-soft, moist, and cakey. I was amazed at how high it rose. It pretty much went to the top of my casserole dish.
The cake itself isn’t heavily sweet, which is why the thin layer of glaze is just what it needs. It provides a more potent sweet maple flavor.
This is a cake that pairs well with tea (Earl Grey, hot, Picard-style?) and also with coffee. Serve this to a crowd! There’s plenty of cake to go around.
Bready or Not Original: Glazed Earl Grey Maple Gingerbread Sheet Cake
Ingredients
Cake:
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups pure maple syrup
- 2 cups sour cream 16 ounce container
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter 1 cube, melted
- 4 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 packets Earl Grey tea a heaping Tablespoon
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
Glaze:
- 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter melted
- 2 cups confectioners' sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon maple flavor
- 2 Tablespoons + milk almond milk works
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 350-degrees. Line a 13x9 pan with aluminum foil and apply nonstick spray or butter.
- In a medium bowl, stir together the eggs, maple syrup, sour cream, vanilla, and butter. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, mix together the flour, Earl Grey tea, ginger, baking soda, and salt. Gradually stir in the egg mixture. Spread batter in the ready pan.
- Bake 45 to 50 minutes, until the middle passes the toothpick test. Cake will have risen a great deal. Cool in pan on wire rack for a few hours.
- Once the cake is room temperature, prepare the glaze. In a medium bowl, melt butter in microwave. Add confectioners' sugar, maple flavor, and two tablespoons milk. Stir until mixed and of spreadable thickness, adding more milk as necessary to loosen it or sugar to thicken.
- Spread glaze atop cake. To slice, lift up by foil and set on cutting board. Store slices in sealed container(s) at room temperature; keeps well for at least 2 days.
- OM NOM NOM!
Bready or Not Guest: K. Bird Lincoln with Spicy Mocha Chocolate Mochi Cake
I’m excited to welcome author K. Bird Lincoln with a special Bready or Not guest post! I’ve read over 130 urban fantasies and it’s hard to wow me these days, but the first book in her Portland Hafu series was a delight. She’s here today to celebrate the release of her second book, Black Pearl Dreaming, with a multicultural chocolate cake.
Plus, you can enter a Rafflecopter giveaway for her first book, Dream Eater! Read the recipe, and you might win yourself a great book to pair with this special chocolate cake.
The Portland Hafu Urban Fantasy series features a Japanese American young woman named Koi. She finds out her father isn’t entirely human and has to battle evil professors and dragons. The second in the series, Black Pearl Dreaming, has Koi traveling to Japan to seek answers for her father’s mental decline.
Chocolate is a huge part of Koi’s world. Like really important. So important that when love interest, Kitsune trickster Ken, wants to apologize for getting her in trouble in Tokyo, he gives her Oregon Chocolatier Dagoba’s Xocolatl Chocolate bar, invoking rosy childhood memories of the only chocolate Koi’s father ever deigned to consume.
So Xocolatl, possibly “bitter water” from the Mayan language, is the flavor I thought I’d play with for this recipe. Drawing on Koi’s happa haole heritage (she’s Japanese on her father’s side and Caucasian-Hawaiian on her mother’s) I thought it fitting to turn Hawaiian Butter Mochi into an homage to my favorite Oregon Chocolatier.
Butter mochi isn’t the same thing at all as Japanese mochi celebrated at New Year’s and used in making daifuku. Butter mochi is a Hawaiian cake incorporating Mochi flour (sweet rice flour or glutinous rice flour not to be confused with ye olde plain rice flour) milk, and butter to make a squishy, bouncy, chewy rich cake like deliciousness.
Don’t be scared off by the mochi flour. All the rest of the ingredients in this are pretty easy to get, and I even found Mochiko Flour (Koda Farms Brand) at my local Hy-Vee grocery store here in the Southeastern Prairie of Minnesota in the Asian Foods section. And of course, you can order Mochiko on Amazon.
This is Hawaiian soul food with a spicy chocolate twist, y’all. One bite, and you’ll be hooked, I promise.
Bready or Not Guest Recipe: BLACK PEARL DREAMING Spicy Mocha Chocolate Mochi Cake from K. Bird Lincoln
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter
- 3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
- 1 1/2 cups white sugar
- 16 oz Mochiko Flour sweet or glutinous rice flour
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 cup cacao powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- 12 oz coconut milk
- 1 1/2 cup milk if you don’t mind the sugar, use 1 cup condensed milk
- Cayenne pepper to taste I used 1/4 tsp
- Cinnamon to taste I used 1 Tb
Instructions
- Grease or insert parchment paper into a 9×13 pan.
- Melt the butter and chocolate together. Mix in sugar and vanilla. In a different bowl, mix Mochiko flour, cacao powder, baking powder, cinnamon, and cayenne. Beat in 1/2 of the Mochiko flour mixture, eggs, and coconut milk. Add in another 1/2 of the Mochiko flour mixture, 11/2 cup milk and beat until all flour and milk is added and mixed in until smooth.
- Pour into pan and cook at 350 deg F for 45-55 minutes.
- Let cool completely. Cut with a plastic knife or wet your knife between cuts.
Koi visits Japan looking for answers and instead is forced to make an impossible choice.
With the help of powerful new friends, Koi defeated her dragon enemy in Portland. Now, no longer able to deny her dream-eating powers or the real reason for her father’s mental decline, she flies to Tokyo with her new Kitsune love, Ken, and the trickster Kwaskwi, seeking answers. But secrets from Ken’s past and Kind politics threaten to unravel their newfound trust and someone in Tokyo is desperate to kidnap a Baku. Koi must untangle a long history of pain and deceit in order to save her father, an imprisoned dragon, and herself.
“I absolutely got sucked in by the way several mythologies were mixed with modern-day and WWII history to form a cool, surprising, and action packed plot. ”
— Pat Esden, author of The Dark Heart and Northern Circle Coven series.
“In Black Pearl Dreaming, Koi is a delightfully watchable heroine in way over her head. She struggles to figure out whom to trust, where she can get good coffee, and what exactly she should do about this enormous sleeping dragon, in this fast paced paranormal intrigue set
in a vividly detailed contemporary Japan.”
— Tina Connolly, author of Ironskin and Seriously Wicked series.
World Weaver Press
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
iTunes/Apple iBooks
Kobo
K. Bird Lincoln is an ESL professional and writer living on the windswept Minnesota Prairie with family and a huge addiction to frou-frou coffee. Also dark chocolate– without which, the world is a howling void. Originally from Cleveland, she has spent more years living on the edges of the Pacific Ocean than in the Midwest. Her speculative short stories are published in various online & paper publications such as Strange Horizons. Her medieval Japanese fantasy series, Tiger Lily, is available from Amazon. World Weaver Press released Dream Eater, the first novel in an exciting, multi-cultural Urban Fantasy trilogy set in Portland and Japan, in 2017 and will release the sequel, Black Pearl Dreaming, October 2018. She also writes tasty speculative fiction reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Check her out on Facebook, join her newsletter for chances to win chocolate and ebooks, or stalk her online at kblincoln.com
Read MoreBready or Not Original: Mini Fruitcake Loaves
Welcome to MACADAMIA NUT MONTH! Why is this Macadamia Nut Month? Because next month on the 23rd, the final book in my Blood of Earth trilogy comes out! Macadamia nuts are a big product of Hawaii, and Hawaii is a major setting in Roar of Sky. Plus, macadamia nuts are awesome.
If you love these nuts, get ready to bliss out. This month includes recipes for:
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Pie
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
Lemony Macadamia Nut Bars
Mini Fruit Cake Loaves to make now for the holidays (macadamia nuts optional) (today)
Fruitcake is one of the most maligned holiday foods out there, but people do love it. My dad sure does. I wanted to make him a fruitcake that proved how awesome they could be.
The recipe you see today is one I’ve been experimenting with for a few years now. One problem that I had with a lot of existing recipes is that they make a ton of fruitcakes. Therefore, I wanted to find the right recipe to cut in half for easier fridge storage and eventual transportation to California.
I used a highly-rated King Arthur Flour recipe and tweaked it a ton. I printed out guides of fruitcake-making advice and incorporated that information, too.
My dad doesn’t like fruitcakes that are heavy on nuts. Therefore, I place more emphasis on the fruit. Customize the kinds of fruits and nuts to your preference. I often use a combination of pre-made “fruitcake mixes” from the grocery store along with dried golden raisins, chopped apricots and dates, etc. Whatever I have in my cupboard or can grab on sale.
The same with the nuts. If you hate walnuts, don’t use walnuts. Include just one nut or use a wide variety, just make sure they are chopped up. You don’t want huge pieces.
The use of cocoa powder seems odd, but it’s there to add color. That’s a holdover from the original King Arthur Flour recipe. I was afraid that it would add a chocolate flavor, but it doesn’t at all. There are so many other complex flavors going on, it doesn’t stand out.
The liquid to macerate the fruit can be alcohol or standard fruit juice. My preference is to get some help from good old Captain Morgan. In the simple syrup, you can also omit the rum, if you so choose.
If you have any questions about this fruitcake recipe, feel free to comment on this page or reach out via social media. Just don’t wait too long–if you want these loaves ready for the holidays, you’ll need to bake them soon!
Bready or Not Original: Mini Fruitcake Loaves
Ingredients
Fruit:
- 1 lb + 4 ounces fruit 20 ounces total, dried and/or candied, including fruitcake mixes, raisins, chopped dates, cherries, apricots, crystallized ginger, etc
- 6 Tablespoons rum or brandy, apple juice, or cranberry juice
Batter:
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter 1 stick
- 1 cup brown sugar packed
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon allspice
- 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon cocoa optional, for color
- 2 Tablespoons corn syrup
- 1/4 cup apple juice or water
- 1 cup nuts chopped, one kind or a variety: almonds, pecans, walnuts, macadamia nuts, etc
Simple Syrup Glaze:
- 1 cup white sugar or caster; or for deeper flavor, turbinado
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 Tablespoon rum optional
Instructions
Prepare the fruit:
- Combine the fruit with the liquid of choice in a non-reactive bowl; cover and let rest overnight, at minimum.
Prepare simple syrup:
- Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan. Heat until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the liquor, if using. Cool completely. Keep stored in jar in fridge to brush the loaves over the coming weeks.
Make loaves:
- Preheat oven at 300-degrees. Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat together, followed by the salt, spices, and baking powder.
- Beat in the eggs, scraping the bowl after each addition.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and cocoa.
- Add the flour mixture and the corn syrup to the butter mix. Scrape bowl well, then add the juice, the fruit with its liquid, and the nuts.
- Apply nonstick spray to the mini loaf pans; pan measurements vary, but this recipe should use 3 to 4 pans. Spoon batter into the pans, filling them about 3/4 full.
- Bake for about 1 hour to an 15 minutes. Cakes are done when a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean. If desired, poke the cakes throughout with a skewer to allow more liquid to seep in. Brush tops with simple syrup for the first time.
- Allow loaves to completely cool, then wrap them tightly in plastic wrap. Store in the fridge or in a cool, dark location.
After baking:
- Once a week for the next six weeks, unwrap loaves to brush with more simple syrup (making more in needed).
- After 6 weeks of ripening, the cakes can be eaten, stored in fridge longer, or frozen.
- OM NOM NOM!
Bready or Not: Bourbon-Glazed Pound Cake (Tube/Bundt Cake)
Bourbon. Glazed. Pound. Cake. This thing is easy to make and tastes like a boozy version of a cruller.
Yes, a cruller. Those yummy braided-style glazed donuts. Slathered in bourbon.
Do I have your attention now?
I based this recipe on one in Bake From Scratch Magazine (Holiday 2016) but I altered it a good bit, especially in regards to the glaze.
When I use a thin, sugary glaze on a bundt cake, I like to use a method I learned from the Great British Bake Off. I use the pan to help me make sure the glaze soaks into the entire cake.
I’ve had too many cakes where the bottom middle of the cake ends up devoid of glaze. Not so with this technique!
Yes, you can taste the bourbon in the end result. No, I have no substitutions to offer. I don’t know what this recipe would be without that particular reinforcement.
Bready or Not: Bourbon-Glazed Pound Cake (Tube/Bundt Cake)
Ingredients
Cake:
- 2 cups unsalted butter 4 sticks, softened
- 2 3/4 cup white sugar
- 6 large eggs room temperature
- 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 cup milk or half & half
- 1 lemon zested
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Bourbon Glaze:
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1/2 cup bourbon
- 7 Tablespoons unsalted butter
Instructions
The Cake:
- Preheat oven at 325-degrees. Grease and flour a 10-inch-or-larger tube pan or bundt pan.
- In a large bowl, beat butter until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add sugar, and beat until fluffy and white, about 7 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- In a separate bowl, sift together flour, nutmeg, and salt. Gradually add it to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk. Follow up with the zest and vanilla. Pour into the ready pan.
- Bake until it passes the toothpick test, about 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. Let cool in pan for 15 minutes, then upend onto wire rack. Set aside the pan--don't wash it! Let the cake completely cool for a few hours.
The Glaze:
- Combine the sugar, bourbon, and butter in a small saucepan. Constantly whisk at a low heat until the butter melts and sugar dissolves. Take off heat. It will look like a lot of liquid, but the cake will soak it up.
- Place the cake back in the pan. Poke holes all over the base with a chopstick or skewer. Spoon about half the glaze over holes and sides of cake. Let sit a minute. Upend cake onto a serving platter or plate. Poke more holes all over top. Spoon rest of glaze into holes and over sides. Use a basting brush to mop up drippings and make sure cake is fully glazed.
- Store under a cake dome at room temperature or in fridge. Can also be cut into slices and individually frozen. Eat cold, at room temperature, or warmed in microwave.
- OM NOM NOM!
