Applesauce Spice Cake with Brown Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

Rosh Hashanah was quiet and sacred and small and exactly what it needed to be. The four of us sat at the table and I said the blessings and we ate the apples with honey and the brisket was six hours at low heat and the honey cake was moist and spiced and the round challah was golden and the family on the screen was pixelated but present, their voices arriving a half-second delayed, which gives conversation the quality of an echo, as if the prayers are bouncing off the walls of the digital space before reaching us. Ethan, now six, sang a song he learned in first grade about the shofar, and his voice through the laptop speaker was tinny and perfect and I sat at the table with tears running down my face and nobody mentioned the tears because the tears were appropriate and also because my mask was on and the mask absorbed them, which is an unexpected utility of pandemic life: the mask is also a tissue.

Marvin ate well. He ate the brisket and the challah and the honey cake and he was calm and pleasant and did not know why we were eating these particular foods on this particular evening, but he ate them with what I choose to interpret as recognition — not of the holiday but of the food, the familiar food, the food his body remembers even if his mind does not. The body remembers. I am learning to trust the body's memory more than the mind's, because the body's memory is the last to go, the deepest storage, the basement of the self where the oldest things are kept.

I wrote a blog post about Rosh Hashanah in quarantine — about setting a table for four and praying for fourteen, about the honey and the apples and the empty chairs and the full screen. The post was one of my most-shared pieces ever. People are hungry for permission to celebrate imperfectly, to hold ritual in diminished circumstances and still call it holy. I gave them that permission. I gave it to myself first.

The honey cake I made that Rosh Hashanah was the kind that fills a kitchen with something close to prayer — warm spice and sweetness and the smell of a year turning over. This applesauce spice cake with brown butter cream cheese frosting is the recipe I return to now when I need to recreate that feeling: the apples, the warmth, the sense that something ordinary has been made holy by the intention you bring to it. Marvin ate two slices. The body remembers.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 55 minutes | Servings: 12

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups unsweetened applesauce
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Brown Butter Cream Cheese Frosting:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
8 oz cream cheese, softened
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

Instructions

Preheat and prepare. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan and lightly flour it, tapping out any excess.
Whisk dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter with the granulated sugar and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add eggs and applesauce. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then mix in the applesauce and vanilla extract until fully combined. The batter may look slightly curdled — this is normal.
Combine. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir gently until just incorporated. Do not overmix.
Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 32–36 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely in the pan before frosting.
Brown the butter. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the 4 tablespoons of butter, swirling occasionally, until the milk solids turn golden brown and the butter smells nutty, about 4–5 minutes. Pour into a bowl and let cool to room temperature.
Make the frosting. Beat the cooled brown butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Add the powdered sugar, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. Beat on medium-high until fluffy and creamy, 2–3 minutes.
Frost and serve. Spread the frosting evenly over the cooled cake. Slice into squares and serve at room temperature. Store covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Applesauce Spice Cake with Brown Butter Cream Cheese Frosting — The Cake That Held the Holiday Together