Sugar High Friday - My First Time

Challenges are awesome to enter because they give you another excuse to bake (or cook). For this month's Sugar High Friday, I had to bend the rules a tiny bit. You see, the theme is drunken apples. Given that I'm only 20, I can't go out and buy any alcohol. My parents don't keep any alcohol in the house, and they weren't going to buy me a bottle just for this challenge (damn it). I decided to use the next best thing - rum extract. I ended up baking this cake at home during my fall break two weekends ago after I went to a local apple festival. I was going to sub the vanilla extract for rum extract, but my mom is very picky and isn't crazy about rum. No worries; I used it in the glaze. Since my mom didn't want the rum extract, I made a little bit of glaze for about two pieces of cake. Let's just say the extract is really strong for such a little bit of glaze. I think if you made an actual bowl of glaze, the milk and sugar would balance out the strongness of the rum. I suggest only adding 1/8 tsp and then add more for taste.

Also, I learned an interesting fact while baking this. I thought the title was Apple Streudel Cake, not Apple Streusel Cake. The streusel is the crumb topping usually baked on top of baked goods. In this case, it's in the middle. A streudel (or strudel) similar to a pocket pastry.

Apple Streusel Cake




Streusel
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped apples (I used Golden Delicious)
1 cup nuts
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp butter, melted

Cake
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup butter, softened
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup milk

Glaze
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbsp. milk
1/8 tsp. rum extract (add more if needed)

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease bundt pan. In a bowl, combine brown sugar, apples, nuts, 1/4 cup flour, and cinnamon. Stir in melted butter.

2. In another bowl, combine 2 cups flour, baking powder and baking soda. In a third bowl, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla. Alternately beat in flour mixture and milk.

3. Spoon half of the batter mixture into pan. Spread all of streusel on top. Top with remaining batter. Bake 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool for a few minutes; remove from pan. Serve warm.

4. For the glaze, stir all ingredients together. Add more sugar if it's too runny; add more milk if it's too thick.



Source: Creative Cook's Kitchen handout, Cakes and Pies group 1 card 3




When I'm home from school, I have a little sous chef. Unfortunately, he was a little occupied when I was baking.