Dulce de Leche Apple Cake

This morning began with a request for a fresh batch of homemade pancakes and soon after the requests began to pile up. My first mission was a coupon treasure hunt at Costco and more miscellaneous grocery shopping at Lucky. Then a request for chocolate fudge sometime this weekend...and a suggestion for sweet potato fudge (still doing some research on that one). Then a bread pudding for my mother's best friend, another batch of pancake batter for my mom to use after I leave on Sunday, maybe some brownies because my mom's boyfriend ran out of box mixes. Not that I had the heart to turn any of these requests down, any excuse to do some baking is enough to catch my attention. But first I had to do what I wanted.

I have been waiting to try this recipe all week. Now they were originally meant to be "Dulce de Leche Apple Bars", but I picked up an adorable circular paper baking mold yesterday at Sur la Table and thought that it would make the perfect size little apple cake. Unfortunately, I must've been into what I was baking that I didn't consider that the batter might overflow. I realized this too late and when I peeked into the oven to see for myself, my susupicious were confirmed. Overflow it had. But I thought it added a certain imperfect charm and it was delicious nonetheless.

My mother and I both agreed that it would do just fine sans the browned butter icing and we would do just fine without all that extra sugar. And being the fruit lovers that we are, we also agreed that next time adding more fruit than the recipe called for wouldn't hurt.



Dulce de leche Apple Cake with Browned Butter Icing

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups chopped, peeled apples
1/2 cup dulce de leche

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 9x9-inch square baking pan.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until fluffy.

Stir flour mixture into sugar mixture, just until combined. Carefully stir in apples.

Spoon 2/3 of the batter into the prepared pan. Drop dulce de leche by heaping Tablespoons over batter. Drag a butter knife through dulce de leche to swirl through the batter. Drop remaining batter over dulce de leche.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until browned and firm to touch. Let cool completely.

Browned Butter Icing

2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons half and half cream

Prepare icing: In a small saucepan, heat butter over medium until it begins to brown. Remove from heat. Add to a bowl with powdered sugar, vanilla and half/half. Beat on high speed with electric mixer until creamy. Drizzle and spread over bars, and chill until icing is set.