Spicing Up The Party

This post and the sharing of this recipe have been a long time in the making, and it all began one fated evening with two parties to attend and both in need of a cake…

I absolutely love a party, and shamelessly to say, especially when they are my own. This is probably why I have a lot of parties, and can find any random excuse to use in justification of said parties. Birthday? Party! Day after birthday? Party again!

My favourite, or lamest excuse rather, is the Going Away Party. True, when you’re heading overseas never to see your family and friends ever again (or at least for a couple of months), the Going Away Party is a must. But a small jaunt over to South America is debatable, so I’m told, particularly when said jaunts happen as frequently mine.

But I’m a true believer that everybody loves a reason to party. So why let semantics bring a good party down?

It was a cold winter night in May, but in good marketing fashion, I managed to convince the gang to attend a night of living la vida loco down at La Cita, a salsa club in Sydney’s King Street Wharf, with dancing and drinks to help prepare for my South American trip soon come. I’m pretty sure they saw through the cover; but hey, whatever works! And this was no time to start getting paranoid; my trip was only one week away.

Along with breakfast being the best time for brownies, it is also my firm belief that a party is never quite a party without a cake, birthday party or not. As such, the plan had always been to bring dessert to my non-Going Away Party, despite the club setting with bums shaking and limbs akimbo. It was just a question of what…

Logistically, I had to find something that could transport well, didn’t require refrigeration and could handle a little salsa jiggle, both inside and outside of the tummy. And as I was baking a cake for a friend Andrew’s birthday too, one that was easy to prepare in bulk.

Always on the search for desserts with a slight twist, I had the perfect cake in mind. Here in Australia, we don’t often bake with the hedonistically-scented spice combo of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves, and I’ve never quite understood it. The Americans do it often, and particularly over autumn when the cool, crisp weather makes for a perfect backdrop to the heart-warming flavour the spices produce. I just love it and soaked it up while living in LA. Now back, I take any opportunity to share the love here in Australia.

So here it was, finally, my chance for a receptive audience. And two parties to boot!

Seriously, it was about time someone spiced up the party.

 Apple Spice Cake with Maple Glaze

This recipe is adapted from Stella’s Stellar Spice Cake recipe on the Food Network.

1 cup chopped dates
2 cups all purpose flour
3 eggs
1½ cups caster sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 cups apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1cm chunks
1 cup chopped walnuts

Glaze
½ cup maple syrup
3/4 cup icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease a bundt tin with butter and lightly coat with flour. Place the dates in a bowl and toss them with some flour until lightly coated (this will prevent them from sinking in the cake batter during baking). Beat the eggs and sugar in a mixer until fluffy. With the mixer running, slowly pour in the oil. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and allspice. Add the flour mix in batches, then add the vanilla. Mix in the apples and nuts, then stir in the dates by hand, distributing them evenly in the batter. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 35 minutes, until springy and dry in the center. Let cool in the tin on a wire rack, then turn out. To make the glaze, stir the maple syrup and icing sugar together in a bowl. Glaze the cooled cake by spooning it around the tops of the cakes and letting it drip down the side.