Spiced Apple Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Icing

I made a cake and I am pretty damn proud of it.  I don’t make cakes all that often and this one is a mix of different recipes that I found.  Because this is a mix of different recipes, there are a few extra ideas mentioned after the recipe below.  This cake is lovely and moist and the cream cheese icing is delish!

125g butter
1 cup cooked apples (about 2-3 apples) or 1 x 225g can apples (I used this apple pie filling stuff)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 ¼ cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon each nutmeg, allspice and salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
icing sugar (for dusting if you don’t want to make the cream cheese icing)

Preheat oven to 160°C.
Melt butter in a medium-large saucepan.  Remove from heat and mix in apples and sugar.  Stir to combine then stir in egg.
Sift dry ingredients into the apple mix.  Stir just enough to blend ingredients evenly.  Spread the mixture into a greased 20cm cake tin and bake for 45 minutes.  When cool, you could dust with icing sugar, or coat the cake with the lemon cream cheese icing from the recipe below.

Lemon Cream Cheese Icing:
250g cream cheese
50g butter
2 cups icing sugar
Rind 2 lemons and the juice of ½ – 1 lemon

To make the icing, place all the ingredients in a large bowl and beat with an electric beater until thick and creamy.

You could also add in ½ cup of sultanas if you like, when you mix the dry ingredients into the apple mix. 

This recipe can also be made into muffins.  Divide mixture among 12 large greased muffin tins (allow ½ cup per muffin).  Bake for about 35 minutes, until risen and set.  Stand for 5 minutes before turning out.