Wise Woman Sweet Apple Cake with Orange-lavender infused Salted Caramel Sauce

Mondays I generally try to show some great ways to cook or bake with your food storage. Tomorrow I teach a class at Honeyville Farms on Edible Christmas Tree ornaments at 10 AM! That will be a blast and give ya a lot of projects to do with the kiddos during the Holiday break. Hopefully they'll be healthier cookie choices too! This week will speed by and by this time next week, Christmas will be over. Yikes.  So...what better way to prepare for the upcoming events of the week than to share a dessert cake that could easily double as a breakfast cake?! It's fast and easy. Thanks to my friends at Lucky Leaf premium pie filling who sent me a copy of the new Bake Your Heart Out Recipe Book and several cans of their filling to play with for Christmas. Grin. Grin. Grin. Give a chef something  she can use will ya?! I was soooo excited!  I couldn't resist trying some of the new recipes and I have to say that I am a huge fan of the new book. It's short, but packed with some great ideas! Among them a baked oatmeal, Apple Fire BBQ chops, Strawberry Slow cooker scoop cake, and Cherry bliss brownies. In it there was a recipe for Pretty Peach cake with Pineapple frosting. It looked beautiful with the fruit peeking though and I just wanted to make it. I love creating recipes. It's my passion. So...I decided to bake my heart out too! We had the apple filling from Lucky Leaf and some caramel...How did I end up with this Sweet Apple Cream Cake with Orange-Lavender infused Salted Caramel sauce? I have no idea. Sometimes stream of consciousness takes over when I create. However, I did use their basic recipe for the Pretty Peach cake as a guide for the cake.

Pretty Peach Cake by Lucky Leaf
1  white cake mix
1 can Lucky Leaf Peach Pie filling
3 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. With a fork mix together the cake  mix withe the peach pie filling and eggs. Gently fold in the sour cream.  Spread into a  greased 9 by 13 inch cake pan. Bake 30-35 minutes until a wooden toothpick inserted near the center come out clean. Cool completely. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Wise Woman's  Sweet Apple Cake 

 4 1/2 cups of My Homemade Cake Mix ( I made it with a NEW 9 grain flour... Recipe to follow soon!)

1 can Lucky Leaf Premium Apple Pie filling

3 eggs (or 6T Powdered Whole Eggs )

1/2 cup sour cream (OR 1/3 cup powdered sour cream)

1 1/2 tsp Chef Tess Wise Woman of the East Spice Blend

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. With a fork mix together the cake  mix withe the apple pie filling and eggs. Gently fold in the sour cream. * If you use the powdered egg and sour cream, simply combine them with the cake mix. Combine the pie filling, 1 cup water and the dry ingredients. 

 Spread into greased and floured 9 by 13 inch cake pan and sprinkle with the Wise Woman of the East Spice blend.

Bake 30-35 minutes until a wooden toothpick inserted near the center come out clean. Cool completely. Refrigerate until ready to serve...though we ate it pretty fast.

While the cake bakes, I made the orange-lavender infused salted caramel sauce.

You need 1 cup of Kraft Kraft Caramel Bits

                                            1/2 cup Gossner Shelf Stable Whipping Cream or fresh whipping cream

Heat the cream and caramel over a double boiler with a whisk until the caramel melts and the sauce is smooth. Now add  1/2 tsp culinary lavender.

Breath. Relax. It won't make your sauce taste like soap. It will be a subtle yet beautiful touch.

 1tsp zest of a fresh orange.

Micro-plane zest the orange and add to the sauce. Let the flavors marry about an hour.

Slice the orange as a garnish for the cake if desired.

After an hour, strain out the lavender. You know why? Because I don't want to have anyone say, "There's a fruit fly in my caramel sauce!" Lavender looks like a fruit fly. 

Well...maybe it's a purple fruit fly, but its crazy to keep it in the sauce and risk it right?

Get a sprinkle of French Sea Salt.

Drizzle  the sauce over the cake. Be afraid. Pinch a little of the salt onto the sauce.

Share it with someone you love. 

 There you go! A wonderful way to use your food storage and make a divine dessert or breakfast cake for the holidays!

Now the folks at Lucky Leaf said they are excited to give away two of their cookbooks to my readers. If you want one...just leave a comment after this post. I'll be doing a giveaway with their book this week. I'll also be catching up on all my low fat Holiday baking! Wah woooo!!

There you go. Make some Christmas memories...and bake your heart out!

Always My Very Best,
Your Friend Chef Tess