Sunday Digression

Today I'm not going to write about grammar. Instead, I'm going to talk about a cake I just baked.

I didn't invent the recipe; it's an adaptation of an adaptation of a recipe from Maida Heatter. Her recipe was for pumpkin cake and the cake contained a lot of fruit and nuts. I didn't care for the idea. How would anyone taste the pumpkin? So the first time I made it, I omitted the raisins and nuts and used a lot of candied ginger instead. It was an instant success. I've made it many times for the holidays and at other times. It lasts well and needs no frosting.

I had some unsweetened applesauce that I'd got by mistake and thought I'd try making an applesauce cake, and I came up against the same issue. All the recipes I could find contained a lot of raisins and nuts. How would a person taste the applesauce or even get an apple taste? So I tried substituting the applesauce in the pumpkin cake recipe. It wasn't bad, but it just wasn't what I wanted. Maybe a few raisins and nuts plus the candied ginger would be better. I also decided to make my own applesauce, which was pink because I left on the skins of the Macintosh apples I used. Macintoshes are a tart apple and get mushy quite easily. Also, for some reason, the apples were a bit on the young side. I used only a small amount of water (I think cider might have been better but I didn't want to buy a half gallon of cider for a quarter cup of liquid).

In any event, with about two pounds of apples I obtained a really thick, almost dry applesauce. Then I cut down on the amount of cinnamon (I'm not crazy about too much cinnamon with anything made of apples) and increased the amount of freshly grated nutmeg, and added three-quarters of a cup of white raisins and toasted pecans along with the half cup of chopped candied ginger.

Boy, what a cake! It's absolutely delicious. Needs no frosting either, and I'm pretty sure it will last well. So this year, instead of pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, I'll be eating applesauce cake.

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