I love my herb garden and I’m always looking for new ways to incorporate fresh herbs into my cooking and baking. So I stepped outside to snip some fresh rosemary to add to this cake I created…and that rosemary turned out to be the star of the show!
Last month there was a knock on our door. One of our winter neighbors was heading back North, and she asked me if I could use the half jar of applesauce in her hand. Well Dear Readers…you all know Meemaw’s mantra by now…Waste Not Want Not!
I stuck that applesauce in the frig, and several days later I saw it staring back at me when I opened that refrigerator door. So I began to look for other ingredients I needed to use up, and I saw what remained of a quart of buttermilk left over from my Bleu Cheese Dressing recipe earlier that week. The dusty old wheels in my head began to ponder what to make. And I wondered what herbs might go well with those two ingredients.
Thanks to Google I saw lots of recipes that combined rosemary with applesauce, so I decided a cake would be the easiest recipe to create. So cake it would be.
I mixed the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry ingredients in a separate bowl…and I made sure to coat the raisins in that dry mixture. (This keeps them suspended in the batter as the cake bakes.)
And I stirred the wet ingredients into the dry ones…
I baked in a 9 x 12 cake pan and I cooled it completely.
Then I dusted it with powdered sugar…just to gild the lily so to speak…
And friends…this cake tasted like the best gingerbread I’ve ever had. But remember there is NO ginger in the recipe!
Sometimes the smallest ingredient can make a HUGE difference in the outcome of a dish…and Waste Not Want Not is a very good mantra to keep repeating.
Applesauce Rosemary Cake
The addition of fresh rosemary added a whole new twist to this cake! Suddenly it tasted like gingerbread...with no ginger added!
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 Cups All Purpose Flour
- 2 tsp. Cinnamon
- 2 tsp. Baking Soda
- 1/4 tsp. Fresh Grated Nutmeg
- 1 1/4 Cups Applesauce
- 1 tsp. Pure Vanilla Extract
- 1/4 tsp. Salt
- 1/2 Cup Butter Softened
- 1/2 Cup White Sugar
- 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
- 2 Eggs
- 1 Cup Buttermilk
- 1/2 Cup Raisins (or more if desired)
- 1 Tblsp. Finely Minced Rosemary Leaves
- Powdered Sugar to Sprinkle on Finished Cake
Instructions
-
Preheat oven to 350 Degrees. Cream together the softened butter, white sugar and brown sugar. Add eggs, buttermilk and vanilla and mix until smooth and stir in applesauce. Mix together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg and salt and stir with a whisk to completely combine. Then stir in the raisins to coat with the dry ingredients. Combine the wet and dry ingredients and stir in the finely minced fresh rosemary leaves. Pour into a greased 9 x 12 inch cake pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely and dust with powdered sugar.
so cool!!as always!–Love it cause I don’t like ginger and this does not need it!!
Thanks Linda! Although your comment made me laugh. If you don’t like ginger and I said this cake tasted like gingerbread…I’m not sure it’s the right dish for you!
Just sayin’ 
(But keep reading because I’m sure I’ll be adding some recipes you’d love to try.)
XOXO
Meemaw