Is anyone getting anxious for fall? The weather has been pretty mild this summer in Southern California, and I doubt there will be a huge change when fall officially hits. Just a few degrees cooler and it will signify it's time to start baking all the warm and wonderful fall flavors...cinnamon, ginger, cloves and allspice, pumpkin and apples. Though I love the flavors of summer, like watermelon and sweet corn, I'm starting to get a little fall bug. That's why I made a little twist on this week's Club: Baked pick by Julie of a Little Bit of Everything.
This week marks the 4th recipe we are baking from Baked Explorations. Julie picked Sunday Night Cake for the group to make. The authors describe this cake as a "no frills-affair....it is an exceedingly, pleasing, simple and delicious gently spiced sour cream cake with easy chocolate frosting". My eyes lit up when I saw the cake had cinnamon as one of the components. My original intention was to make the recipe as is. But earlier this week I made this chocolate cake recipe and this chocolate cream cheese frosting recipe for a co-workers send off party. Then I used the leftover chocolate cream cheese to fill peanut butter whoopie pies (to be posted later this week).
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but this chocolate girl was feeling a bit chocolated out. The authors of Baked Explorations suggest you can make this cake even simpler by skipping the chocolate frosting and giving it a simple dusting of powdered sugar. I contemplated that thinking Hubby would be more likely to help me eat it with powdered sugar. Then I decided I wanted a something a little more....what could I do and still keep in the spirit of the "ease and comfort" of the Sunday Night Cake?
I looked over my fridge and saw that I had half an orange that needed to be used up. And the orange cinnamon glaze was born! This glaze is extremely easy and is delicious with the lightly spiced cake. To make the glaze I started with powdered sugar, added in a bit of orange juice, orange extract, a pinch of cinnamon and a bit of heavy cream. Sometimes when I make up my own recipes, I'm not always in love with the result. But this was awesome. I loved the flavors of the orange and cinnamon and how they paired with the moist buttery cake. It was a nice preview of fall and has got my mind turning, thinking about the recipes I plan to make this season.
Other notes about this recipe. The original recipe makes a 9 inch square cake. I halved the recipe and used a 6 inch round cake pan. I was too lazy to half one of the eggs, so there is an extra half egg in my cake. I added 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract because I couldn't resist. And the last modification was I used dark brown sugar instead of light brown sugar (again, because I was lazy and didn't want to open the light brown sugar when the dark was ready to go). While baking, the cake rose about 1/4 inch over the top of the cake pan. But it shrank down a bit and ended up being exactly 2 inches tall.
And this will come as no surprise, but I've eaten this twice for breakfast already and loved it!
To get the cake recipe, head over to A Little Bit of Everything. To see what other Club Bakers did with their Sunday Night Cakes, click here. If you want to join our baking adventure through Baked Explorations, hop over to the Club: Baked site and reach out to Karen. It's a lot of fun and you get to eat delicious treats, like this Sunday Night Cake.
Orange Cinnamon Glaze
2/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
1/4 teaspoon orange extract (more if you want extra orange punch)
Pinch (generous) of cinnamon
2-4 tablespoons heavy cream
In a medium bowl whisk powdered sugar, orange juice, orange extract and 2 tablespoons of the heavy cream until fully combined. Add additional tablespoons of cream to get to a pourable yet slightly thick consistency.
Yields enough to generously glaze 6x2 inch cake.
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