Apple Spice Cake with Pumpkin Frosting

Sometimes your kids have great ideas, without you even realizing. That’s basically the story behind this Apple Spice Cake with Pumpkin Frosting. Long story short: Kid came up with the idea; described it to me; I told him it didn’t sound like it would work; he wanted to make it anyway… it turned out great.

Truthfully, the original inspiration for this cake came when we were watching the infamous Sandra Lee Kwanzaa cake video. While he was watching the video (and laughing), Kid said, “You know, there’s actually a good idea behind that cake.” He described what he wanted to make as “kind of a cake with apple pie filling, and a pumpkin frosting.” I told him that it wouldn’t work; the cake would be too mushy-sweet. He insisted. So we made it anyway. The result – Yippee! A light and sweet cake that just about anyone could love (even Sandra Lee).

5 from 1 vote

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Apple Spice Cake with Pumpkin Frosting

A light and sweet apple cake with a pumpkin-flavored frosting

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 35 minutes

Total Time 55 minutes

Servings 12 servings

Author Jeanne Fratello

Ingredients

• 1 vanilla cake mix batter prepared as on box
• 5 apples preferably of different varieties (We used Honeycrisp, Granny Smith, Red Delicious, Yellow Delicious, and Fuji), peeled, cored, and sliced
• 2 T sugar
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 tsp. flour
• For the frosting:
• 1/2 cup butter softened
• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup pureed pumpkin

Instructions

1. Prepare the vanilla cake batter according to package directions. In a separate bowl, combine the apples, sugar, cinnamon, and flour. Gently stir the apples in with the cake batter. Pour the batter into a greased 13x9" glass pan. Bake according to package directions (typically 350 degrees for 35 minutes). Remove from oven and cool.
2. Prepare the frosting: Cream the butter, add sugar and pumpkin and beat until smooth. Spread evenly over cooled cake. Cut into squares and serve.

To make this cake, we used five different kinds of apples (Granny Smith, Red Delicious, Yellow Delicious, Honey Crisp, and Fuji). We also used a canned pumpkin puree for the frosting but you could certainly use “real” roasted mashed pumpkin or squash.

So anyway, he went ahead and made the cake and entered it in Melissa’s Produce’s annual holiday dessert recipe contest. The “icing on the cake,” so to speak, was that the cake won a prize. Talk about a sweet ending!

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