Arlo enjoys his heart cake.
The other evening Arlo and I made some Valentine’s Day treats. He really is a good helper in the kitchen. He’s attentive and patient, and he even puts up with Mama stopping to take pictures for her blog all the time – I love baking and cooking with him! And, it’s really good quality time together that we both enjoy.
As usual, I went into the kitchen not knowing exactly what I was going to make. I knew I wanted to bake an apple cake because I knew I had some bruised up apples in the fridge that likely wouldn’t get eaten on their own. I also knew I didn’t want too much sugar in the cake because that makes me feel better about serving it to my baby and about eating it for breakfast myself. I also wanted to add almond into the cake – I don’t know why but apple and almond sounded like it would go good together and make a yummy, wholesome cake. And, finally, I knew that I had a heart-shaped cake pan and heart-shaped muffin tins, so I knew whatever I made was going to be heart-shaped.
I looked up a few recipes for apple cake but didn’t find any that I wanted to try. They all were too apple pie-ish, with lots of cinnamon or spice – not the right flavor for Valentine’s Day. So, I decided to come up with my own. I took a basic oil and egg (replacer) cake recipe – because I thought that would be best with the apples – and adapted it. It turned out yummy, but I know I’ll be back in the kitchen tweaking it until it gets better – good enough to share with you.
For now, I just want to share some photos from our fun baking session.
This apple peeler corer slicer is very handy for making pies, cakes, strudels, etc. It’s a specialty tool I actually recommend having.
I use this almond tea when I don’t have almond extract. It’s from the Korean grocery store and it’s a powdered mixture that is sweet and creamy.
Arlo is serious about getting every last bit of batter off the beater.
“Pink sprinkles, Mama! Pink sprinkles!”
I used pink food coloring and a toothpick to make swirls in the batter. I also sprinkled a packet of almond tea powder on top some of the cakes before baking to make a sort of crumble topping.
Fresh out of the oven!
Once cooled a bit, the heart cakes popped easily out of the foil and the pink swirl turned out nicely.