Apple Cinnamon Pumpkin Something Cake: food fight friday !

Welcome to another week of Food Fight Friday y’all!

This is such a special time of year, kids back in school, Monday night football, pumpkin spice latte’s and apple cinnamon yum yums. I always look forward to reaching into my recipe arsenal and pulling out fresh baked sweet breads, cakes and pies. Nothing says fall/winter/holidays like the smell of apple cinnamon pumpkin something. Well, cozy up with a hot cup of cocoa, an oversized sweater and some ‘Stranger Things’ season 3 because I have a treat for you.

Apple Cinnamon Pumpkin Something

I was talking to my friend @birdsinparadise about baking with dates. I realized I have never used them in anything and wanted to change that but first “does one need to de-pit the date before baking” 🤔… common sense told me yes but I asked @birdsinparadise anyway. Her answer was perfect:

Yes, you do want to remove the pits. Medjool dates usually contain pits....hard on the teeth and the food processor lol You can get pitted...just have to look around a bit. They are so easy to remove, no worries my friend :)

This convo came about because she put out fantastic looking Blueberry Protein Balls made with dates. They looked so good I became inspired to bake something of my own using dates… thanks @birdsinparadise.

These are the dry ingredients, although I did add almond flour/meal as well.

Dry Ingredients

2 C GF Flour Blend (1 c GF Flour to 1 c Almond Flour)
1 Tsp Cinnamon (I am very liberal w/cinnamon)
1 Tsp Baking Soda
1/2 Tsp Sea salt

This is what I consider the “wet ingredients”.

Wet Ingredients

1 C Dates (plus 1/4 c boiling water to soak them)
3/4 C Almond Milk
1/3 C Coconut Oil
1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract
1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
4 Apples (2 sliced, 2 grated)

I began by de-pitting the dates by slicing them down the center and simply pulling out the pit. It was quite easy and now feel a little silly for being so intimidated 🤦🏼‍♀️

Just in case you’re like me and are uncertain of what the pit is, it’s that hard looking seed in the middle there.… just pull it out and voila, de-pitted.

I boiled about a cup and a half of water and soaked the dates in my measuring cup.

Moving right along, it’s time to sift all of the dry ingredients into a bowl. Being that we have the bare minimum, as far as kitchen utensils, you have probably guessed that I don’t have a sifter… and you would be right. I was able to fashion a make shift (make-sift) sifter here.

A Tupperware bowl, a rice rinser and fork should do the trick. If I were smart I would have mixed up the Gluten Free Flour, Almond Flour, Cinnamon, Baking Soda and Sea Salt before sifting but I like to fly by the seat of my pants so I mixed as I sifted.

I used a strong circular motion at first but quickly realized a tapping was just as effective and much more annoying… naturally I went with the tapping.

I think it ‘sifted’ quite well, although, the bottom layer remains cinnamonless it’s something I feel I can rectify with the mixing of the wet ingredients.

First, I bust out my handy grater (if you have a food processor then use that) and get to work grating 2 apples. I specifically grabbed a few of the first Royal Gala Apples of the season from the Farmers Market just so I could make this Apple Cinnamon Something… yay to locally sourced organic produce 💃💃

I realized while grating my apples that the skin works as a finger guard, shielding your fingers from any mishaps. Love it!

I don’t think I’ve ever grated an apple before so this entire process stimulated a bunch of apple sauce-y inspiration.

I mean look at all of that goodness! Just wait until it hits the blender, which by the way did a fantastic job. No need for a food processor here (however, if you have one I’d still use it).

Dump your Dates, Almond Milk, Vanilla Extract, Coconut Oil and Apple Cider Vinegar into your Blend-cessor and blend until smooth.

Then add your grated apples (I use my hands because we’ve already established I’m a renegade 🤠) and blend that until smooth as well.

Look how well my blender did with that job. This blender really has been a good Thelma to my Louise. I’ve even made chickpea cookies with this blender, granted it took fooorrrreeeevvvvverrrrr to blend but in the end Thelma came through.

Now, here is where I’ll rectify that ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ trick with the cinnamon. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and gently fold together until just mixed.

Pour the batter into a nicely greased baking tin and make sure it’s bigger than the one I used here. You don’t know yet but about 30 minutes after taking this picture, the batter had ‘runneth over’ 🤦🏼‍♀️

Take the other two sliced apples and place them around your cake in whatever way you think is pretty. My husband @dandays helped me with this one.

I could have made my apple slices thinner but was scared to cut off my finger tips so thick apple slices it is :). Before transferring into the oven (set at 350) make sure to dust the top with cinnamon and I drizzled a little agave too. Like this:

I bet you’re thinking what I was thinking right about now… “that cake is filled to the brim, should I pour it in a different dish and start arranging the apples again or go for glory”… as an outlaw, I went for glory!

I went for glory, set over a piece of foil; I’m an outlaw not an idiot. Then I shut the oven and squeezed my butt in anticipation of a cake mess. I must have opened that oven 8 times in the first 30 minutes. It wasn’t until the last 25 minutes that the cake began to burp up unwanted pieces of batter. I quickly grabbed a cookie sheet and placed that under the cake as well. This move adjusted my cooking time quite a bit…

After the initial 45-55 minutes baking at 350, the center was still runny so I threw it in another 15 minutes. From there I checked the cake about every 7 minutes and still felt it was under cooked in the middle by the 30th extra minute but had to relieve the browning top. I pulled the cake and let it cool on the counter while baking a pan sheet all in one dish dinner: rainbow potatoes, broccoli, eggplant and zucchini.

This is what our first piece looked like; an epic fail. I had just spent the last 2 hours filling our house with an Apple Cinnamon Pumpkin Something aroma and there was no way we weren’t going to devour something that was apple cinnamon. So we pretended it was an Apple Cinnamon bread pudding and got down on some dessert.

Once our taste for A.C. (Apple Cinnamon) was quenched I decided to throw the cake back in the oven for an additional 30 minutes (at 350). Our second piece was much more on point.

With all of that said, done and devoured I got to work on some dishes.

Not bad for a Food Fight Friday extravaganza! Next time I will use a bigger cake dish, even if it isn’t round, so the cake cooks without the need for a cookie sheet filter.

Either way, epic fail or pleasant invitation to the holiday/fall/winter season, Apple Cinnamon Pumpkin Something Cake will always be welcome at our house. Thank you for reading! Let me know of your favorite (Vegan, GF, Refined Sugar Free… haha) Apple Cinnamon goody recipes :)

Pura Vida ✌️

P.s. I know there is no pumpkin in this recipe but didn’t want to exclude it from the festivities.