Cooking with Alicia & Annie ~ Christmas Apple Cake

We started our Christmas celebrating early this year. lol! It started with tonight's dessert - Christmas Apple Cake from Alicia's Recipes. This is another entry into the Cooking with Alicia and Annie Blogging Event.


I'm not sure where they came up with the name of this cake - maybe a family tradition of making to give as gifts for the holidays? Whatever the case may be, the cake sure is good!

I made one 9 x 9 cake and 12 lg. muffins from this mix. Both were very moist and delicious.





I made some changes to the original recipe:

I used 1/2 C. apple cider in place of the rum. I also soaked the raisins in 3/4 C. of very hot apple cider since the juice and raisins both go into the mix.

I used 2 C. of raisins in place of the 1 C. raisins + 2 C. of nuts. I did not increase the liquid above on the raisins when it came time to soak them.

I used 3 tsp. of apple pie spice instead of pumpkin pie spice.

I filled 12 lg. cupcake liners full of batter. With the remaining batter, I filled a 9 x 9 glass dish. The muffins baked for 18 minutes @ 350*. The cake baked for 48 minutes @ 350*.

These muffins would be great for breakfast. The cake would hold up great packed in lunches.

For a pretty dessert, drizzle with caramel apple topping that has been heated in the microwave.