Apple Cinnamon Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

December. The city is lit up — Christmas lights on Wisconsin Avenue, the tree at Red Arrow Park, the German Christmas Market downtown. Milwaukee does winter holidays better than anywhere. Maybe it's because we need the brightness. Five months of cold requires something to look at. Babcia is improving physically — she can walk with the walker for short distances — but something else has changed. She's quieter. More reflective. She sits in her chair and looks out the window more than she used to. Mom says it's the recovery. I think it's more than that. I think the fall showed her something she'd been refusing to see: that the body has limits, even hers. She gave me the recipe cards this week. Not the mushroom soup card — she gave me that for my birthday. The REST of them. All of them. Every recipe she owns, handwritten on index cards and scraps of paper, some in her handwriting, some in her mother's, some in a third hand I don't recognize. Tied with a rubber band, spotted with grease stains, the ink faded on the oldest ones. "Take them," she said. "I won't be using them anymore." "Babcia, you'll cook again. When your hip heals—" "Jakub." She said my name the way she says it when she's serious. "I'm eighty-eight years old. My hip may heal. My hands won't. These recipes need someone who can use them. That's you." I took the cards. I drove home. I sat on my couch and held them — forty-seven recipe cards, sixty years of cooking, three generations of women before me — and I understood what she was doing. She was saying goodbye to the kitchen. Not to life. To the kitchen. And she was trusting me to carry it forward. I didn't sleep that night. I sat at my kitchen table and read every card, one by one, under the light. Some I knew: pierogi, bigos, gołąbki. Some I'd never seen: a walnut torte, a honey cake, a cold cherry soup. I photographed every card, front and back, and saved them in three places. These are irreplaceable. These are the family inheritance. At the brewery: Fireside is selling well again, year two. Forest Floor is getting orders for next year's batch. I should be focused on work. I'm focused on Babcia. Sunday dinner: I cooked. At Babcia's house. In Babcia's kitchen. She sat and watched and hummed. The hum is still there. As long as the hum is there, I'm okay.

The night I sat at my kitchen table reading through all forty-seven of Babcia’s cards, I kept coming back to the ones I didn’t recognize — the walnut torte, the honey cake — recipes from hands I’ll never meet. I couldn’t make those yet; I wasn’t ready. But I needed to bake something, because that’s what she would have done, and the apartment smelled like nothing, and that felt wrong. This apple cinnamon spice cake is what I made at two in the morning with what I had: warm spices, good apples, a cream cheese frosting that tastes like the kind of thing you’d write down on an index card and pass to someone you love. It’s not Babcia’s recipe. But it’s the one that got me through the night.

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 40 min | Total Time: 1 hr 5 min | Servings: 12

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup whole milk, room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream, room temperature
2 cups peeled, cored, and finely diced apple (about 2 medium apples; Honeycrisp or Granny Smith)
Cream Cheese Frosting:
8 oz full-fat cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
1–2 tablespoons heavy cream, as needed for consistency

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans (or one 9x13-inch baking pan), and line the bottoms with parchment paper.
Whisk the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl using a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the softened butter with the granulated sugar and brown sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3–4 minutes. Scrape down the sides as needed.
Add eggs and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract.
Combine wet and dry. In a small bowl or measuring cup, stir together the milk and sour cream. With the mixer on low, alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk mixture to the butter mixture — begin and end with the flour mixture (three flour additions, two milk additions). Mix just until combined; do not overmix.
Fold in the apples. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the diced apples until evenly distributed throughout the batter.
Bake. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. Bake for 35–40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the tops are golden. If using a 9x13 pan, begin checking at 38 minutes.
Cool completely. Let the cakes cool in the pans on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then turn out and cool completely before frosting — at least 1 hour. Do not rush this step; warm cake will melt the frosting.
Make the frosting. Beat the softened cream cheese and butter together on medium-high until smooth and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Reduce speed to low and gradually add the sifted powdered sugar. Add vanilla and a pinch of salt. Increase speed to medium and beat until smooth. Add heavy cream one tablespoon at a time until the frosting is spreadable but holds its shape.
Frost and serve. Place one cake layer on a serving plate and spread a generous layer of frosting over the top. Set the second layer on top and frost the top and sides. Dust lightly with cinnamon if desired. Slice and serve at room temperature. Store covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days; bring to room temperature before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Apple Cinnamon Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting — The Night I Read Every Card