Apple Cake with Brown Butter Frosting

Two recipes this week and neither left the apartment.  Why didn’t the sumbitches cookies or this cake leave the apartment?  They were just too. damn. good.  We ate them all.  No sharing this week.

Also, there was a bit of emotional eating going on.  Our lease isn’t being renewed so in the next 4-5 months we will all being looking for new places to live.  To say I love my apartment and the neighborhood is a huge understatement.  For the past four years I’ve been living in a unicorn apartment; it’s so magically awesome you have to see it to believe it exists!  I’ve managed to build a little grown-up home here.  I am sad to leave.

Every time I walk down Fifth Avenue I become really nostalgic and start saying goodbye to all the stores and restaurants I love.  Goodbye Key Foods, goodbye Bogota.  Goodbye Pizza Town, goodbye Chocolate Room.  Goodbye nail place, goodbye wine & liquor store.  It’s bad.  Considering 4 months ago I was moving out of Brooklyn completely, I shouldn’t be such a mess.  Plus, I still have four months.  It’s been real Park Slope.

I know that however hard change is, I’m usually rewarded with something better than I could have ever managed.  I need to accept that and have faith, but it’s not always easy.  Cake helps.  Cake with brown butter helps even more.

This is a perfect fall treat!  The apples were picked just a few weeks ago and there are plenty of complimentary warm spices like cinnamon and ginger.  It’s amazing how moist and tender bundt cakes manage to be.  The entire cake is flavorful and delicious.  Bits of apple throughout provide even more moisture and flavor, not to mention beauty.  Despite the cake portion being amazing, the frosting pushes the cake off the charts.  I was licking the frosting bowl it was so good!  Brown butter creamed with powdered sugar is sweet, nutty, and tastes like magic in your mouth.  I’m drooling just thinking about it.  Do yourself a favor and make this apple cake now!  Or at least make the frosting and just dip apple slices in it, almost as good.

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Print the Recipe!

Apple Cake with Brown Butter Frosting
Adapted from Cookies and Cups
Yield – 10-12 servings

Cake
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
3 medium-large apples, I used Golden Delicious
2 1/2 cups flour

1. Preheat the oven to 350 ˚F and liberally coat a bundt pan with Baker’s Joy.  Set aside.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment beat together the butter, brown sugar, and sugar until pale yellow, about 3 minutes.
3. Add in the eggs and vanilla and beat until well combined.  Add the soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger to the bowl and mix.
4. Chop the apples into a medium dice and toss with 1/2 cup of flour.
5. Turn the mixer on low and add the rest of the flour and mix until just combined.  Fold in the apples.
6. Spread the mixture evenly into the bundt pan and bake for 55-65 minutes.
7. The cake is done when a skewer inserted comes out clean.
8. Let cool for about 10 minutes and then remove from the pan to cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

Brown Butter Frosting
1/2 cup butter
3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2-3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 apple, thinly sliced

1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and cook until the butter has browned.
2. Add the butter and powdered sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until combined.
3. Beat in the vanilla and cream.
4. Drizzle the frosting over the top and push the frosting over the edges.
5. Use a mandoline to thinly slice the the apples and then arrange on top.