The Cake Merchant

Spiced Apple Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Apple Layer Cake

Last week, I found myself wandering around the grocery store and lamenting the price of berries. There were so many berry desserts on my list that didn’t get made over the summer, but when I saw the array of apples in the corner, I got distracted from my sadness. I remembered these apple cupcakes that I made last year, which made my list of favorites for 2014, and I had been wanting to make a layer cake version of it ever since.

This time, I replaced the goat cheese frosting (but isn’t that the best part?) with a brown sugar and maple cream cheese swiss meringue buttercream. As much as I adore goat cheese frosting, cream cheese SMB has a special place in my heart. Especially when it’s made with brown sugar, and even more so when you add maple syrup. In fact, after making this version of cream cheese frosting, it’s really hard for me to go back to the overly sweet powdered sugar variety that is so often paired with red velvet or carrot cake. The apples make the cake pretty sweet in itself, so I thought this frosting made for a better balance.

Apple Layer Cake

Apple Layer Cake

Cream cheese SMB is more time consuming to make than your traditional cream cheese frosting, but so worth it. In the past when I’ve made cream cheese swiss buttercream, I subbed cream cheese for half of the butter and ended up with a soupy, gloopy curdled mess that would not come together no matter how much I whipped it. After reading this post, I figured out why. Here are a few tips and tricks to get smooth and luxurious cream cheese SMB.

1. Finish your SMB like you normally would with only the butter added.
2. Whip the cream cheese separately until it is smooth.
3. Add the finished SMB to the cream cheese (not the other way around) a little bit at a time until it comes together.

Follow these steps and you’ll have a light, fluffy, and not to sweet cream cheese frosting. And because it’s softer than traditional SMB, it tastes great straight out of the fridge. Yay for instant gratification!

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Teeny Tiny Chocolate Cake for One

Tiny Chocolate Cake

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Las Vegas for Aaron’s birthday. I wanted to bake him a birthday cake before we left, but he had already had a day of indulgence with his coworkers followed by a pizza dinner with me, and we were about to leave for a gluttonous weekend, so I didn’t know when we were going to squeeze in the time or belly space for a cake. That’s when I decided to whip up the teeniest tiniest cake ever. It was just big enough to satisfy our sweet tooth before we headed off on our trip.

I made the entire batter for the cake in a measuring cup, and both the cake and the frosting without a mixer. I baked this is my trusty little 4-inch cake pan, which I have gotten way more use of out of than I ever expected when I bought it. I used cake strips to prevent the cake from doming up, since I didn’t want to lose any of this already tiny cake.

Tiny Chocolate Cake

I’ve always used an electric mixer or my Kitchen-Aid to make buttercream, but since this was such a small amount of frosting, I used the wooden spoon method. It takes a little bit longer without a mixer, but there’s less clean up involved. I recommend taking your butter out and cutting it into pieces before you even start making the cake. That way it will already be softened by the time the cake has cooled and you won’t have to wait to make the frosting.

Tiny Chocolate Cake

Tiny Chocolate Cake

This cake can easily made vegan. I’ve made it several times and just used whatever milk I have on hand- whole, 2 percent, soy, almond, etc. The butter in the frosting can be replaced with vegan butter, shortening, or a combo of the two. I used a chocolate frosting on this cake, but I’ve listed several flavor variations below.

For Vanilla Frosting- omit the cocoa powder
For Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting- add 1/2 tablespoon of peanut butter
For Chocolate Almond Frosting- add 1/4 teaspoon of pure almond extract
For Mint Chocolate Frosting- add a drop or two of mint extract
For Mocha Frosting- add 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder dissolved in 1 teaspoon of water and omit the milk

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Raw Cheesecake

Raw Cheesecake

Confession: I’ve never made cheesecake that actually has any cheese in it. Does this mean I have to call it “cheezecake?”

Raw Cheesecake

My fear of water baths is about as intense as my fear of pie crust, so I’m glad that this raw vegan cheesecake is one of the simplest desserts I’ve ever made. No rolling, no baking, no water baths. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know that I’ve been obsessed with raw pies an cheesecakes ever since my trip to Portland last summer, where I had the best pies and cheesecakes ever. They were raw, vegan, gluten free, and didn’t leave me feeling like I had lead in my stomach the rest of the day. I’ve spent many many hours trying to recreate them.

Raw Cheesecake

I’m not going to call it healthy, since nuts and coconut oil are full of fat. Let’s just say it’s easier to digest than regular cheesecake and fairly allergy friendly. I shared this dessert with a friend who is allergic to pretty much everything except tree nuts. The cashews in this are necessary though, since they give it the cheese-cakey texture, so substitutions won’t work. Even so, I feel like it’s a good option to bring to a dinner party where you have to navigate a lot of dietary restrictions. So turn off your oven, grab your blender, and let’s make some chees(z)ecake!

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