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.

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.

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!

This past weekend our friends, John and Emily, threw a whiskey and waffles party in an effort to use up some of the many opened bottles they had of both whiskey and maple syrup. Genius!

This here was our little contribution, a bottle of Old Pogue bourbon whiskey.

It’s extremely mellow and sippable with the sweet flavor of caramel and very little burn. Definitely my new favorite bourbon!

And because I can’t go to a party and not cook something, I decided to use some of the bourbon to make bourbon baked apples to pair with the waffles we’d be enjoying.

I peeled and cored 5 large fuji apples and generously sprinkled them with cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger. Then I topped them with a spoonful of brown sugar and 2 spoonfuls of the bourbon. Those got all stirred up.

I broke up a tablespoon of butter and dotted it all over the top, then baked them at 375 degrees for about an hour, stirring every 20 minutes.

And this is what came out:

I spooned two more spoonfuls of bourbon over the warm apples and stirred it up to let them soak up all the delicious bourbon sauce. I wanted them to be very soft, almost falling apart, so that they’d make a luscious topping for the waffles.

I was having fun in the kitchen so I decided to make some maple cinnamon whipped cream too. Just a half pint of heavy whipping cream, sprinkle of sugar and cinnamon, and maple syrup until it tasted maple-y enough. I whipped it with a stand mixer using the beater attachment and it was fluffy and delicious in about 5 minutes.

When we got to John’s house, he made us a few signature cocktails to go with our brunch. I had a maple Old Fashioned using the Old Pogue bourbon and some maple syrup that was matured in bourbon barrels.

Mmmm….bourbony!

And here’s the delicious brunch we all feasted on:

Crunchy bacon and buttery waffles that were crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Absolutely amazing paired with the maple cinnamon whipped cream, soft baked apples, and one of the many maple syrups we had to choose from.

After everyone got to eat, we moved the party outside for a whiskey tasting hour!

That’s about half of what was actually available.

We all compared a newly opened bottle of Glenfiddich with one that had been open for about 3 months to try to guess which was which in a blind taste test. I think I was the only person to get it wrong. Doesn’t matter, still got to try lots of new whiskeys.

I think we managed to polish off at least two of the opened bottles we were trying to get rid of, so I’d say the party was a success. And, I didn’t feel like death the next morning either. Double win!

Below is the recipe for those amazing bourbon baked apples. If you’re not into booze with breakfast you could absolutely leave out the bourbon, but I’d try replacing it with juice or cider to maintain the same moisture levels.

Favorite waffle topping?

(Update: For an even better explanation of my favorite crusting buttercream recipe, as well as my favorite recipe for vanilla cake, try this post instead.)

Sorry I’ve been missing for a few days. As you’ll soon see, I’ve been quite busy!

I’ll show you the buttercream icing I made for my wedding cake practice later in this post….first though, I have got to share with you the amazing breakfast I’m currently scarfing down while I type this.

I found my favorite apples at the market two days ago, the Honeycrisp!  Nearly bought the lot of them…

I lay awake in bed last night dreaming of my intentions for these apples this morning. Here’s what I did…

I cut up one small Honeycrisp and sauteed it with cinnamon, nutmeg, and a little apple cider.

Behold what emerged!..

I put these warm, glossy apples over oatmeal cooked in almond milk and topped it all with toasted buckwheat and honey!  The apples are still slightly firm but not crunchy and all the flavors are just perfect together.

It’s really helping to warm me up in our chilly apartment.  We’re trying not to turn the heat on until it’s really necessary.

So anyway, glorious breakfast aside, this post is really about what I spent my day on yesterday…

That is a vat of frosting, my friends. It was finally time to assemble the wedding cake I’ve been working on!

This is the recipe I used for this crusting buttercream icing:

• 2 sticks room-temperature butter
• 1 and 1/2 cups (12oz.) butter-flavored Crisco shortening
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• approx. 2 lbs. powdered confectioner’s sugar
• milk or water to thin for consistency

You start by incorporating the butter and shortening together in a mixer.

Then add the salt and vanilla and mix until it’s glossy.

I added the sugar in about six installments to allow it to incorporate completely, then let it whir away to get nice and fluffy.

Here’s what came out…

I added just a splash of milk and gave it one more spin to help it to loosen from the blade a little better.

I trimmed the muffin tops off of my pre-made cake layers…

And started building…

Here’s a few more layers…

And the crumb coat…

Let that bad boy set up in the fridge for a few hours to let the buttercream “crust.”  That’s when it gets hard and crispy.  You want that for a few reasons; it seals in all the crumbs so that your cake isn’t slowly breaking apart while you’re trying to work with it, it seals the cake to prevent moisture loss so you don’t have a stale cake on wedding day, it makes for one solid structure so that the layers aren’t sliding around all over each other, and it also makes for a smooth and clean surface to lay fondant over so that no bumps or imperfections show through the fondant.

Anyway, I spent the rest of the evening making a video of how to take that rough column of cake and turn it into a finished layer for a three-tier topsy-turvy cake!  Hopefully I’ll have that up sometime tonight, I need Jeff’s help to edit it so I have to at least wait for him to get home from work.

Here’s what I get to try to avoid for the rest of the day…

Cake scraps!  Maybe just one little piece?