Internet Spice Cake

Recently Aaron made a spice cake from scratch. Now, I know what you're thinking: "but Charles, haven't we been talking about how cake from a box is so tasty and incomparably easier? And didn't you even undertake the task of figuring out which kind of boxed brownie is best?"

Faithful reader, you are astute. I made this cake from scratch out of curiosity more than practicality. As far as the boxed brownies go, I've tried a few more types. I haven't written them up since it seems that those updates are not particularly interesting. Suffice to say, my handful of trials have indicated that neither Target brand nor Betty can compete with Ghirardelli.

My cake recipe came from the internet. I made only minor changes, though I have some thoughts about what I would change in the future. I also made frosting from a recipe I found here, though I found it to be unsatisfying and added to it substantially.

Cake ingredients:

2.5 cups	unbleached all-purpose flour
.25 cups	corn starch
4 tsp	baking powder
.5 tsp	salt
1 tsp	ground cinnamon
.5 tsp	ground nutmeg
.25 tsp	chili powder
.5 tsp	ground allspice
.5 tsp	ground cloves
4 tsp	fresh ginger, pulped
2 cups	light brown sugar
3 large	eggs
1 cup	milk
2 tsp	vanilla extract
1 cup	softened butter

Frosting Ingredients:

8 oz	softened cream cheese
1 stick	softened butter
1.5 cups	powdered sugar
.25 cups	apple butter
3 tsp	honey
.25 tsp	chili powder

Cake Procedure:
Preheat oven to 350F. Invite Katie and Aaron over for dinner. While cooking something unrelated, have them mix everything together. First they'll combine all the dry ingredients. Then they'll whisk the eggs into the liquid ingredients. Butter is mixed in first, then the liquid ingredients. Brown sugar and ginger, being neither dry nor liquid, go in now... I guess. Get an electric mixer and scramble everything together thoroughly because that probably wasn't the right order.

Choose either a 9x13 pan or an 8x8 pan and a cupcake pan. Grease and flour them, even if they're nonstick, before adding batter. Bake until a fork inserted near the middle comes out clean. Cupcakes take about 20 minutes. 8x8 pans take about 40 minutes (supposedly). If you put too much in the 8x8 then hope you have a rack in your oven tall enough for it to rise over the edges of the pan and give it an extra 15 minutes to bake.


The cake came out dry. It was very mellow. I would like to try it again, using ground ginger like I was supposed to do in the first place. I would also use more nutmeg, since it's delicious, and add half a cup of applesauce.

Frosting Procedure:
Mix together cream cheese, butter, apple butter, and most of the sugar because those are the only ingredients in the online recipe. Try it. It's not right. Start throwing things in there. Add the rest of the sugar to give it a more frosting-like consistency then throw in the chili powder and honey to give it a little sass. You can use the cupcakes to test it as you go; your guests only have to know about the cake.

Once you are satisfied with it, spread it thickly on the cake to balance out the dryness. Sprinkle some extra chili powder on top for decoration.



Ideally the cake should be served using Paula's silverware while she is abroad. Then you should accidentally bring the serving utensils home. Oops.