Hot Apple Cider Cake

Mmmm...nothing like smell of hot apple cider! I was in a hurry to make something for dessert, so this was whipped up from a boxed cake mix. Nothing to be ashamed of! It tastes delicious, very moist, damp, dense and full of apple chunks! If I were to make this again, I would skip the powdered sugar icing and glaze it with (reduced) apple cider syrup.

Hot Apple Cider Cake

1 pkg. yellow or spice cake mix
1 pkg. vanilla instant pudding (4-serving size)
1 3/4 c. apple cider (plain)
3 medium Granny Smith apples (peeled, cored and roughly chopped)
4 eggs
1/3 c. oil
1 c. apple cider
2 c. powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. Boil 1 c. of apple cider in medium pan until it reduced to 1/4 c. about 8-10 minutes. Grease and flour 12-cup fluted tube pan or 10-inch tube pan. Beat cake mix, dry pudding mix, reduced apple cider, the remaining 3/4 c. cider, eggs and oil in large bowl with electric mixer on low speed until blended. Beat on high speed 2 min.
Gently stir in apples. Pour into prepared pan.
BAKE 50 min. to 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Again, reduce 1 c. of cider to 1/4. c. Whisk into 2. c powdered sugar until smooth, add more cider if necessary. Drizzle over cake.

Various Pics

Things I have made in the past few months:

Birthday Cake: Four Layer Midnight Cake filled with ganache, covered with Italian Meringue buttercream and topped with chocolate shavings.




Buttermilk yeast rolls from the Bread Bakers Apprentice, Variation #2.


Four layer of jaconde, soaked with coffee syrup, with alternating layers of French chocolate and coffee swiss meringue buttercream

Guinness Stout Cake with White Chocolate Buttercream

Almond jaconde soaked with coffee syrup, coffee-flavored swiss meringue buttercream, ganache and chopped almonds.

I really do love to bake, it's such a stress reliever. I'm not very good at presentation, but I think truly good sweets are more about taste, anyway.