Desserts, Shabbos

Recipe: Heimishe Chocolate Applesauce Cake for Winter Afternoons

chocolate bundt cake

Now that winter is really here, our thoughts turn to comfort food to warm both hearts and bellies. This chocolate applesauce cake fits the bill, with or without the luscious chocolate icing. A great cake to snack on during a short winter Shabbat afternoon, or any time at all! Make it parve or milchig, depending on your druthers and the content of the meal you eat first (though you may be tempted to skip the meal and go straight to dessert—it’s that good!).

Chocolate Applesauce Cake

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter or margarine, softened
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon allspice
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 tablespoons cocoa
  • 1/12 cups sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups applesauce
  • 2 cups flour

Method:

  1. Blend margarine with salt, spices, sugar, and cocoa. Cream well.
  2. Add eggs one at a time, applesauce, and finally flour mixed with baking powder and baking soda.
  3. Bake at 350° F in greased Bundt or tube pan for 1 hour. (If you use a tube pan with removable bottom, wrap the pan with foil so it doesn’t leak batter all over your oven.)

Chocolate Icing

This icing is versatile. You make it thicker so you can squeeze it through a decorating tube or thin to drizzle over a cake by adding more or less powdered sugar, or thinning with more hot liquid, a little bit at a time.

Ingredients:

  • 5 tablespoons unsalted butter or margarine
  • 6 tablespoons cocoa
  • 1/4 cup hot water, cream, Riches, coconut cream, or coffee
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 cups powdered sugar

Method:

  1. Melt butter or margarine. Add cocoa, mixing until smooth.
  2. Add hot water or other hot liquid of choice and salt, then vanilla.
  3. Beat in powdered sugar gradually, until icing is thick enough to spread. You may not need all the sugar.