Acme Applesauce Cake with Guava Cream Topping

Cakes... I've been into easy cakes of late. After the last Tex-Mex feast, I served this easy little cake of humble origins. I dressed it up with a guava cream topping that had a hint of lime in it. Since we were having company for dinner, we put a good dent in it. That's a good thing, as Silent Bob and I love sweets, but ... a whole cake for the two of us? Ridiculous!

So... the history of this cake goes WAY back. When I was a little girl, living in the northern New York border town of Massena, my mother shopped at the Acme Supermarket. She bought store-brand cans of all the basics, applesauce being one of them. This cake recipe came from the label on the back of the can. It was one of the first recipes that Mom let me make unattended. I have three brothers and a sister ... together, we would mow through an entire 13" by 9" cake at the end of a family meal. It always satisfied the whole crowd!

I am totally loved the idea of the guava cream topping on this cake... I like my cake better than the cake in Milliken & Feniger's cookbook, Cantina. Their recipe for guava cream is wonderful, though. So... I married the best with the best! Traditionally, we always had a basic white icing or whipped cream on top of our cake.  If you don't care to go with the guava cream, serve it warm with sweetened whipped cream or chill it in the summertime and have it with a lemony cream cheese icing and a big glass of cold milk. It is simple perfection on a plate!

Acme Applesauce Cake with Guava Cream Topping - printer friendly

Acme Applesauce Cake

Oven: 350 degrees F. for 45 minutes

Ingredients:

2 c. flour

1 c. sugar

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking soda

2 c. applesauce

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. cloves

1/2 c. currants or raisins

1 c. walnuts

1/2 c. butter, melted

Making the Cake:

1. Whisk the flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda together in a mixing bowl.

2. Add the applesauce, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and melted butter to the dry ingredients and beat briskly  to combine.

3. Turn in the walnuts and currants/raisins.

4. Grease a 10-inch spring-form pan and line the bottom with a piece of waxed paper (cut to size).

5. Turn the batter into the pan and bake for about 45 minutes or until a cake-tester comes clean.

6. Remove the cake from the oven and place it on a rack for 10 minutes.

7. Remove outer ring from pan and turn the cake onto a serving platter.

8 Peel the waxed paper from the bottom of the layer and reverse the cake back to a top-up position. Finish cooling before icing .

Guava Cream Topping

Ingredients:

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/2 c. guava jam or jelly

1 tbsp. fresh lime juice

1 tsp. lime zest

1/2 c. confectioner's sugar, dissolved in 1 tbsp. boiling water

2 bsp. walnuts, dry roasted in a frying pan over high heat, crushed

Combine the ingredients in a mixing bowl and whip it for however long it takes to create a completely smooth icing. Turn the icing onto the top on the applesauce cake and smooth over the top surface. Dust the top with crushed roasted walnuts, if you really want to make the cake gorgeous.