I'm sorry Cream Puff!

We waited for you to come claim your birthday cake, but finally could not resist anymore and had to start without you!

Seeing as there is no cake left now though, I guess I'll just have to tell you all about it instead.

This is a variation of Peabody's Pumpkin Butterscotch Cake , made with applesauce instead of pumpkin puree, making it my Apple Butterscotch Cake. On wow was it sweet!

I like pumpkin, but as usual, no one else in my house does. Except for the seeds - they like the seeds that I roast up after we carve the pumpkins on Halloween, but that is a few days away still. So rather than dismiss the recipe because of the one ingredient, okay the main ingredient, I decided to change it instead.

I started out by taking apple sauce (sorry, it was from a jar, I'd run out of the homemade stuff I'd had on hand) and reducing it in a small pot until it was much thicker. I used that in place of the 3/4 cup of pumpkin puree in the cake and the cake came out moist and full of flavor!

I accidentally screwed up the filling the first time, forgetting to actually let the sugar caramelize before adding the cream - it was a Doh! moment. I caught it before I added the butter and started over, but it meant I was a bit short on cream for the frosting afterwards, which worked out alright as I had 1/2 cup of whipping cream left, and also had a full container of half and half cream which I used to make up the difference. Sure the frosting needed a bit more chilling before it would thicken up nicely, but it worked in the end.

Oh, I also omitted the nuts in the filling, which I think were actually needed to temper some of the sweetness (and bitterness) that comes with homemade butterscotch.

Like I said, Cream Puff, this cake was very sweet (sweets for the sweet maybe?) The two different types of butterscotch would have both worked with the cake by itself (though I did not actually like the filling butterscotch), and there was alot left of both! The fridge had to be stored in the fridge to keep the icing firm, but it also helped to keep the cake moist longer.

I hope you had a wonderful birthday and maybe next year we will wait for you a bit longer?