Apple Pudding Cake with Toffee Sauce

My pumpkin-loving birthday boy

Time flies when you're REALLY BUSY!!! I can't believe it's Saturday already, where did my week go?? Today we went to the pumpkin patch, which turned out to be the BEST patch EVER!!!

Reasons why:

Dogs allowed, so Bracken got more exercise today than she has in months and made friends with a cow and every little girl under the age of 3

100 acres of pumpkins. That's a LOT of pumpkins, people!

No admission fee

Flat rate, six bucks per pumpkin, no matter how big, so of course my Dad left with half a dozen

Free kid activities

Huge, gorgeous corn maze

Mountain range in the background

Then it was a sprint back home so I could whip up some mac & cheese for the block party and get started on Joe's pumpkin cake. I was going all out, double bundt pumpkin spice pumpkin-shaped cake, inspired by Pinterest (of course):

Source: Country Living

But I only have one properly shaped bundt pan, so I dumped the first layer out before it was cooled, and it collapsed a bit, and by the time it should have been assembled, after hours of a very successful block party (yay neighbors!!) I just didn't care anymore. Slapped some frosting on and called it good. Maybe next year.

By the way, I made my own pumpkin puree this week, and used it in one of the two bundt cakes. The one I chose to frost, actually. We all agreed that the canned pumpkin was significantly tastier. More pumpkin-y, less squash-y. Who knows how those canned pumpkin people do it, but hey! At least I tried it once, right? We ended up scraping the frosting off the first layer and smearing it on the second layer. Much yummier. :)

Warm Apple Pudding Cake with Toffee Sauce (adapted from The English Kitchen)

Printable Recipe

3 cups peeled, grated apples (I used Honeycrisps)

4 Tb butter, room temperature

1 1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 large egg (2 eggs if at high altitude)

1 large egg yolk

1/1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp ginger

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder (3/4 tsp baking powder, skip the soda, at high altitude)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

For the Toffee Sauce:
1/2 cup light brown sugar
7 Tb butter
200 ml heavy cream (measure with glass measuring cup)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8 inch square or round baking dish well and set aside. Whisk flour, spices, baking powder/soda and salt together in a medium bowl and set aside.

Cream together the butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla and mix until combined. Stir in the grated apples until just combined. Add the dry ingredients and mix till combined. Fold in the nuts, and pour into prepared pan.

Bake for 30 to 45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

To make the sauce, melt the butter and sugar together in a small pan. Add the cream and bring to the boil. Simmer for a few minutes until the sauce reaches the desired consistency. Serve warm to drizzle over cake.

It may not look like much, no frosting, no decoration, just brown with bits of apple peeking through, but this is a scrumptious, simple, homey cake that just feels like Fall.

 And then, of course, you pour rich, buttery, homemade toffee sauce over the top and it's simply heaven! The texture is moist and thick, more of a snack cake than a light and fluffy cake. The kind of cake you can imagine eating a hundred years ago, whipped up by hand in a bowl. Yum!

Studded with toasty walnuts and sweet, slightly chewy apples, warm with Fall spices and drizzled with that gorgeous sauce, this was exactly the cake I needed last week to beat my annoyance at our unseasonably warm Fall. :)