A Little Cake, Anyone??

Frosted Caramel Apple Layer Cake

So, I have been in the mood lately to make a cake!  I found this recipe on the Whole Food's Recipe App for the Iphone a few years ago, and I've made it before so I knew that it would be tasty!  And I have also been wanting to learn how to cake decorate for a long time.  Well, this is my first attempt...I think I learned a few things for next time, such as before you pipe icing on a cake, let it chill in the refrigerator first so it doesn't melt off the sides of the cake!

(I had to scoop all the icing off once for a re-do).

So anyway, here is the recipe (quite healthy too, I might add):

Cake:
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
3/4 cups canola oil (or I used virgin olive oil)
3/4 cups unsweetened applesauce
3/4 cup caramel dessert sauce (you can find this with the ice cream in the frozen section!)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (or I used regular, organic 1% milk)

Frosting:
5 cups (1 1/4 lbs) powdered sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup apple juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt

Note:  This recipe makes a cake big enough to serve 16 people!  (So I halved all the ingredients).

So to begin, you mix together the pastry flour, all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.  Then in another large bowl, beat together the sugar and oil (an electric mixer works best).  Add the applesauce and caramel sauce and beat together until well mixed.  Then, you add the eggs one at a time, mixing them in after each addition.  Next, add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the milk.

You need two cake pans (greased and floured) to fill with the mixture!  Bake at 350 degrees until done.

For the frosting, put sugar, butter, apple juice, cinnamon, and salt together in a large bowl.  Beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.

After this is done, I would recommend letting the cake sit in the freezer for a little while to make sure it is nice and cooled off before putting the icing on it.  (Do this with the icing too, if you are planning on piping it on the cake).  What I did was put a thin layer of frosting over the whole cake first, and then letting it sit in the ice box for a few minutes, and then piping on the little spirals later.

However, I didn't let the frosting chill in the ice box for very long, so it sort of melted and didn't set right on the cake so it looks messy and not really pretty.

But I have a better idea for how to do it next time!!