It is apple season here on the beautiful central coast so I appreciate the recipe. It sounds so good.
And I have pureed kabocha squash (Japanese pumpkin) in the freezer.
Thanks.

You are welcome!

Yum, Tami, I have Ashley's baby shower coming up and was thinking pumpkin spice cake, but you may have changed my mind to applesauce. Cupcakes are red velvet with pink frosting, following the "it's a girl" theme, but I need a cake too. Hmmm, decisions, decisions.....

Annie

Yummy....I love anything with apple or pumpkin in it.

Linda

Warning! When I went to cover the cakes after cooling, the pumpkin fell in the center. When I cut it yesterday the center wasn't done even tho the toothpick looked clean. So make sure it's done, maybe bake it a few extra minutes to be sure. At least the edges taste good! And the applesauce one came out great.

Tami

Of course I just had to make the pumpkin. It also fell a bit and is pretty dense, I cooked it for a lot longer than the recipe called for, so we'll see if it's done tomorrow when I cut it at the baby shower! If not, well, I made red velvet cupcakes and we can eat the outside edges of the pumpkin cake! You're right, I evened up the layers and crumb coated it last night and the edges ARE good.

Annie

Maybe when you make the pumpkin version, you should use some baking powder? Soda needs the acid component to work...applesauce is more acidic (ph 3.3) than pumpkin (ph 5.0). Another thought is that seems like a lot of flour...4 cups for a 9 x 13 cake. Maybe too much batter for the size of cake pan?

Ci_lantro, there is baking powder in the recipe. There is the possibility of it being too much batter for that pan, but when I put the single batch of the applesauce in the 9 x 13, it didn't look like anywhere's near enough.

It is a very dense recipe. This was the first time I have ever tried making it into a cake. Mom always made them into cupcakes but I discovered I only had a few cupcake papers. I never have any luck just greasing the tins. So I made them into cakes. The baking time I put in the recipe for the cakes was what I used. Obviously, the pumpkin one wasn't in the oven long enough, but the edges are still good.

Annie, I hope it came out ok for you! Have fun at the shower, which I know you will!

Tami

oh, my bad. Now I see the baking powder listed! Totally missed seeing it this morning.

I love dense, moist cakes so I will be trying the recipe. I have apples to use up and some winter squash from my garden.

No problem, Ci_lantro! When I typed the recipe, there were spaces between items. g-web doesn't like the way I do my recipes, I guess. Sometimes they don't even like spaces between lines when I post a comment. The flavor is great. Even without it being made with my grandmother's home made applesauce, it still is one of the recipes that tastes like I remember it as a kid. Grandma had a small orchard that had mostly Jonathon and McIntosh apples in it. She always left the peel on the apples when she cooked them for sauce, and it was always PINK applesauce. She never canned it, just froze it. To this day, I don't like most store bought applesauce. It just doesn't taste right. And if I find one I do like, the next time I buy it, it doesn't taste the same.

Tami

Hi this sounds wonderful! I've got some applesauce that didn't fit into the canner when I made some recently. I mostly don't eat applesauce "straight" and wanted some new recipes that use it. I will definitely be trying this!

Question - when you say shortening, will butter make a difference, good or bad?

Thanks,
Kathy

Kathy, to my knowlege, it shouldn't make a difference. The recipe my mom had called for shortening, so I use Crisco. Most likely, my great grandmother used lard or butter. I really don't know. As I am 52, I don't imagine my great grandmother even knew what shortening was! Maybe someone else can better answer this for you.

I am waiting anxiously to hear how it turned out for Annie this weekend!

Tami

Tami - I made your recipe with home made applesauce, used butter instead of shortening. I started by creaming the butter with a hand mixer, then added the sugar, then the egg, then everything else. Baked in a 9 x 9 pan for 35 minutes - it's almost half gone (DH took 1/4) and has only been out of the oven for 15 minutes! It's amazing hot, and I want to see if we can wait till it's cool to see how it is then. The texture is quite light but it holds together well, especially for a hot cake. I don't know if that's the cake anyway or if it was the beating with the hand mixture.

Very yummy!!!!

I wasn't sure if I was going to pick more apples and make another batch of applesauce; this decided me I need to; I now have my day planned for Wednesday. :)

Kathy

Glad you enjoyed it!

Tami, I made the pumpkin into three layers and frosted it with cream cheese frosting. Although it was very dense and moist, almost like a quickbread in texture instead of cake, it was delicious, and did get done enough. There wasn't much left...

Annie

Glad you had good luck with it! And the cream cheese icing sounds good to!

Tami