All that’s left to share from last weekend is this incredible apple butter cake!

I love to bake, but ever since I started paying attention to eating mostly healthy foods I’ve tried to put aside that urge to make a batch of cookies every week. I have a huge folder full of bookmarked recipes for when I need a “fancy” dessert, if only I had enough occasions to make them all!

This is a cake that I heavily modified from another recipe. It’s so far changed from that “inspiration cake” though that I feel totally cool with posting it as my own recipe.

Apple butter cake

A damp and delicious cake with the warm winter flavors of cinnamon and rich apple butter.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Yield: 1 9-inch cake layer

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 3/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup apple butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 small eggs
• 3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1/4 tsp. ground clove
• 1/4 tsp. ground ginger

Cooking Directions

1. In a stand mixer, mix together oil and brown sugar followed by the vanilla, apple butter, and eggs one at a time.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together dry ingredients and spices and slowly add to the wet mixture in three installments, allowing the dry to fully incorporate with the wet each time.
3. Slowly drizzle in almond milk while the mixer is at it's lowest speed until it is fully combined.
4. Pour batter into a non-stick tart pan or regular 9-inch cake pan sprayed with a non-stick spray.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
6. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

I love how damp the texture of this cake is. It reminds me of a really good banana bread. The frosting is a sweet contrast to the subtle cake flavor but it isn’t too crazy sweet either. The flavor of the cider is barely noticeable in it, it just adds a kind of fresh fruity crispness.

Cinnamon cider buttercream

Sweet buttercream with a hint of fresh fall apple and warming cinnamon.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 3/4 stick unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup apple cider
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• up to 4 cups powdered sugar

Cooking Directions

1. Beat room-temperature butter in a stand mixer until light and fluffy.
2. Add in a cup of the sugar and all the other ingredients and beat until combined.
3. Keep adding sugar a bit at a time and mixing until the desired thickness is achieved.
4. Spread over a completely cooled cake.

I ended up pawning the rest of the cake off on my mom and brother-in-law. If it had sat in my house any longer I would have undoubtedly eaten it all myself. I love sweets.

Speaking of sweets, today I’m baking up a carrot cake to take to Christmas Eve dinner with Jeff’s family. I’m adding some special signature touches to it, so I’ll be sure to share the recipe with you after the holidays. Hope yours are wonderful!

December 23, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 9 comments

Earlier this year when Jeff and I were taking a vacation in Seattle, we visited a vegetarian restaurant for lunch called Cafe Flora. There, we had an appetizer of rosemary biscuits topped with the most amazing mushroom miso gravy ever.

Ever since then, I’ve been meaning to recreate the recipe at home but never really got around to it. So when I mentioned that I might want to make a miso shiitake gravy for the dinner party this past weekend, Jeff immediately asked, “Like the one we had in Seattle?!?!” Yes, my love, like the one we had in Seattle….but better!

I started by chopping up a bunch of shiitake mushroom caps. I’m not really sure how many, and they were all different sizes, but I’d say it was around 2 cups or so.

I even found this really cool “mutant” mushroom in the bunch…

I discarded the stems because while shiitake stems are edible, they’re very woody and unpleasant to eat. I sauteed them in a few spoonfuls of lamb drippings but really you can use any fat, butter would work very well. I also threw in a few of the roasted garlic cloves from the lamb which dissolved nearly immediately, but chopped garlic would be just fine. Also, I didn’t add any extra herbs because the lamb drippings were already so heavily scented with rosemary, but if I didn’t use the drippings I would have added a bit of chopped rosemary instead.

Once they were very soft I sprinkled in a little flour to make a mushroom roux. It should come together like a thick paste with the texture of wet sand.

Then I added in the liquids; vegetable stock, soy sauce, and a bit of apple cider vinegar. I put a big dollop of red miso in and used a small whisk to incorporate it slowly and completely.

Then it just needs to reduce a bit to the desired consistency.

It is absolutely killer at this stage with all of the chunky mushroom bits swimming in the richly flavorful sauce, but I decided to pulse it a few times in a food processor because I wanted a more homogenous texture, as you can see on my plate below. I think next time I would leave it as is though.

Miso shiitake gravy

A rich vegetarian gravy made with earthy mushrooms and salty red miso.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 cups chopped shiitake mushroom caps
• half a quart vegetable stock
• 1/3 cup red miso
• 1 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
• 4 tbsp. butter
• up to 4 tbsp. flour
• 1 tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary

Cooking Directions

1. Sautee mushrooms and rosemary in butter over medium heat until soft.
2. Sprinkle over flour while stirring and keep adding until you have the texture of wet sand.
3. Add in liquids and lightly whisk in miso to incorporate.
4. Allow to reduce for 5 minutes or until desired thickness is achieved.

If you can’t find shiitakes that’s ok, but I’d make sure to use another flavorful mushroom such as portabellas. Button mushrooms should really be reserved for topping salads and pizzas. And while I truly prefer red miso in this recipe for the way it pairs better with red meats, white will be just fine but can sometimes be a little too salty, so you might even want to omit the soy sauce if you’re using it to cut the extra saltiness.

This miso gravy is a recipe I fully intend to pull out again to impress a guest. Also, every time I make a roux I feel like a real chef. It’s so easy but it just feels so fancy!

Do you roux?

December 22, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 5 comments

As promised, I wanted to share with you the recipes from yesterday’s post, starting with the most amazing lamb roast ever. This is a Jamie Oliver recipe so I’m not going to completely repost it from his site, but just walk you through the steps to show you how incredibly easy it is.

His recipe calls for a lamb shoulder but I haven’t been able to find that cut anywhere so I ended up going with a portion from the upper leg. If you can’t find lamb, a large cut of beef or pork would work just fine.

Start by patting the roast dry with some paper towels and trimming most of the excess fat, but leaving a little here and there to keep it moist while it roasts. Cut long deep slices across the meat horizontally and then vertically, making a grid in the flesh. Salt and pepper the crap out of it, making sure to get the seasonings into the grooves you’ve just cut, and then rub it all over with a thin coating of olive oil. Lay over about 8 to 10 whole sprigs of rosemary.

Next up, peel and entire head of garlic. No, for real.

I find it’s easiest to break it into cloves with my hands and then bash each clove with the butt of my knife to loosen them from the peels. They slip out pretty effortlessly if you’ve done a good job of beating them into submission.

Next, tuck the cloves into the slices all over the lamb and just chuck any extras into the roasting pan.

At this point, Jamie would instruct you to turn your oven on “full whack,” which I think is a very charming thing to say and which for me means to turn my oven up to 500 degrees.

Cover your roasting dish with a sheet or two of aluminum foil and poke holes all over. When the oven has finished heating up to a fiery inferno, put in the roast and immediately turn the temperature down to 325 degrees. Let him bake for at least 3 hours and up to 4 if your roast is bigger than mine. Your house is going to smell amazing.

When it’s ready to come out, it’ll look like this…

It’ll be swimming in delicious lamb fat and juices and the meat will be pulling away from the bone. Discard the rosemary and get ready to shred it.

You can either pick out all the cloves of garlic and use them separately, or you can shred them right into the meat. They are so soft that they’re barely holding together at this point. I love roasted garlic with an intense passion so I like to eat them whole as if they were a side dish.

Just transfer the roast to a cutting board and, using a fork to hold it still, pull off chunks of meat with a pair of sturdy tongs. It should come off pretty easily though you may have to pick at it a bit around the bone.

This roast is excellent by itself, but it was even more special with the miso shiitake gravy that I’ll be sharing with you tomorrow.

It’s a real show stopper of a recipe and it really only takes 10 minutes or so to put together before the oven does all the rest. You can even prep it a day ahead of time and stash it in the fridge until it’s time to start cooking.

I hope you try it next time you need to impress a guest!

What is your favorite roasted dish?

December 21, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 6 comments