This easy cake is nutty and dense with the most incredible texture (achieved by the coconut sugar and oat flour). Honestly, I couldn’t stop eating it. It’s delicious on it’s own, but I made a quick caramel sauce to drizzle on top.

Pecan Oat Cake
Makes one 9-inch cake

INGREDIENTS
Topping:
2 Tbsp Butter, softened
3 Tbsp Brown Sugar
1 cup Pecans, chopped fine

For Cake:
4 Tbsp Butter, salted
2/3 cup Coconut Sugar
1 cup Oat Flour (made by processing oatmeal until fine)
4 Eggs, beaten

Warm Caramel Sauce, if desired (recipe follows)

METHOD
Preheat the oven to 350° F.
For Topping:
Spread the 2 tablespoons of softened butter on the bottom and sides of your cake pan.
Coat the pan with the brown sugar and pecans.
Set aside.

For Cake:
Beat the butter and sugar until creamy.
Add in the oat flour and eggs until combined.
Scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan.
Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until the cake is golden brown and springy on top and barely beginning to shrink from the sides of the pan.
Cool the cake in the pan on a rack for 5 minutes.
Unmold the cake onto a cake platter (nut side up) and allow to cool.
Sift a little powdered sugar on top.
Serve with warm caramel sauce, if desired.
Enjoy!

Caramel Sauce

INGREDIENTS
1 stick of Butter, salted
¾ cup Brown Sugar
½ cup Heavy Whipping Cream

METHOD
In a small saucepan melt the butter over medium low heat.
Add the brown sugar and heavy cream together, whisking vigorously to combine.
Bring to a boil and reduce to a low simmer.
Stir continuously until the sugar is melted and no longer granular (about 3 minutes).
Allow to cool until just warm, before serving.
Caramel will thicken as it cools.
Store in refrigerator and warm slightly

I really enjoy baking. It’s so satisfying, especially when you end up with a beautiful and delicious cake like this one! Don’t be intimidated by it’s looks. It’s really not hard to make, because we’re going to start with a boxed cake mix. Yep. I just added a few additional touches and made it my own. Check it out!

INGREDIENTS
About 2 Tbsp butter and 1/4 cup sugar, to prepare Cake Pans

For the Cake:
1 Duncan Hines Classic Yellow Cake Mix, prepared according to my directions below
2 Eggs
1 cup of Coffee, cold
1/3 cup Butter, melted
1/4 cup Pecan Meal

For the Frosting:
2 cups Heavy Whipping Cream
1/4 cup Confectioners Sugar
1 tsp LorAnn Gourmet Vanilla Butternut Flavoring or Pure Vanilla Extract

Garnish: 1 1/2 cups Pecan pieces, toasted

Optional, drizzle with Salted Caramel (recipe below).

METHOD
For Cakes:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Prepare cake pans by completely coating with butter and covering with sugar, shaking off any excess.
Set pans aside.
In a large bowl stir together the cake mix, eggs, coffee, melted butter and pecan meal.
Continue to mix for about two minutes, until completely blended.
Pour equally into the two prepared cake pans.
Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
While the cake is baking you can also toast the pecan pieces that you will use to garnish the sides of the cake.
Usually 12 minutes is all the time needed to toast the nuts, then set them aside to cool.
Once the cake is done, remove from oven and after about 5 minutes, turn cakes out of the pans onto cooling racks.
While cakes continue to cool you can prepare the Whipped Cream Frosting.

For Frosting:
In the bowl of your electric mixer combine the cold heavy whipping cream with confectioners sugar and flavoring.
Beat on high for about 5 minutes, or until light and fluffy.
Cover and place in refrigerator until ready to use.

Once cakes have cooled completely, you can generously cover the cake with the whipped cream.
Cover sides of cake with the toasted pecans – be sure they are TOTALLY cool before you do this!

You have the option to drizzle the top of the cake with Salted Caramel.
I did this by putting the cooled caramel in a little baggie, zipped it up, and snipped a small hole in one corner.
My opinion, yes, do it… here’s the super easy recipe (plus you’ll have lots left over for ice cream).

The Best Salted Caramel

INGREDIENTS
2 cups Sugar
12 Tbsp Butter ( 1 1/2 sticks)
1 cup Heavy Cream
2 tsp Coarse Sea Salt

METHOD
In a heavy medium saucepan, place your sugar over medium heat.
Whisk the sugar until it melts and totally liquifies.
Continue whisking until all the sugar has dissolved and it turns a light amber color.
Turn heat to low.
Add in the butter, continue to whisk until butter is melted and incorporated.
Whisk in the cream, a little at a time.
Once all the cream has been whisked in and is totally blended, remove from heat.
Whisk in the salt and set aside to cool.

Enjoy!

I’ve always loved the fall. As a little girl growing up in Maryland, I loved having 4 seasons that actually changed. After living in California for all of my adult life, that was something I really missed… along with a good old thunderstorm (complete with lightening), the magic of fireflies was sorely missed, as there are none in California, and of course, the changing color of the leaves.

Last year we moved from Los Angeles to Tennessee. We’re way out in the country as compared to the city life I knew. It’s been a total culture shock and I’ve missed my daughter and friends so much. But, happily, I’m starting to really like it here.

So, since this is a food blog let’s talk about fall = apple season. Yes, there’s apple pie, applesauce, strudel, apple crostata, etc…. and then there are Caramel Apples. I made these apples with sweet homemade caramel sauce, salty peanuts, and dark chocolate to finish it off. You could make variations of this apple by using different nuts, white or milk chocolate, Reese’s Peanut butter chips melted instead of the chocolate, adding cookies crumbs, crushed candy bars, mini marshmallows ~ the variations are endless.

I don’t eat Caramel Apples often, what I should I say is that I don’t eat Caramel Apples often enough!! When eating this apple, I didn’t just bite into it, I sliced it into eight pieces to be sure that I would get topping with every bite. Oh, it was so good. I savored every morsel!

INGREDIENTS
4 Granny Smith Apples
4 Sticks for the apples
Homemade Caramel Sauce (recipe below)
2 cups salted Peanuts, crushed
2 cups of dark Chocolate, melted

METHOD
Wash your apples thoroughly and dry completely.
Insert one stick securely into each apple center.
Get a piece of waxed paper ready to place the finished apples on to set and harden.
Set up three bowls, one with the warm Caramel Sauce, one with the crushed Peanuts, and one with melted Dark Chocolate.
Dip one apple into the Caramel Sauce, coating it evenly all around.
Allow excess caramel to drip back into the bowl.
Next roll the apple gently in the peanuts, coating the caramel sauce completely with crushed peanuts.
Pour the dark chocolate onto the apple, not covering the peanuts completely.
Now set the apple on the waxed paper, and start the next apple.
Once you have done all the apples allow them to harden at room temperature, and then place them in the fridge to harden completely.

NOTE: To melt the chocolate I just placed it in a microwave safe bowl and melted it at 20 second intervals until I could stir it easily.

Easy Caramel Sauce

INGREDIENTS
2 cups granulated sugar
1 pint heavy cream

METHOD
Place the sugar in a heavy gauge sauce pan and place over medium high heat, watching it closely.
When the sugar starts to caramelize and turn amber, carefully stir with a wooden spoon to make sure all of the sugar is dissolved.
Once the sugar has turned deep amber, very slowly and carefully start to add the heavy cream a little bit at a time, being very careful of the steam and the hot sugar.
Once you have added ½ of the heavy cream you can pour in the rest, stirring constantly.
It may start to solidify, but don’t worry it will melt again with more cooking.
Once all of the cream has been added, cook on low heat for about 10 minutes.
The longer you cook the caramel, the thicker it will become.
Remove from the heat, place in a bowl and set aside.