Castle Cake

I found the recipe online at Baking Bites

I wanted something to help me use up all the applesauce I made last summer from the apples on my tree.

I received a cake pan shaped like a castle from my step mom as a Christmas gift to the household. So in the spirit of giving to everyone, I decided it was time to use it. It was also a bribe of sorts to encourage my three year old to pick up his blocks at a pace slightly faster than a hypothermic slug.

Our standard routine is for him to dance around my feet demanding that he gets to help while I get out all the ingredients. Mind you, this is after I have assured him that he gets to help once I get everything out of the cupboards.

In the interest of trying to do things better, this time I put him up on the counter and handed him the stuff we would need and trusted that he would not drop the 1/3 full bag of flour onto the floor.
We measured things out, followed the directions and a batter came together rather painlessly.
Of course I forgot to pre-heat the oven and only remembered when I was reaching for cupcake wrappers to bake the remaining batter in.

So I portioned out the rest while the oven heated and had a conversation with my son about how it would be much nicer to ask "Why are you putting batter into those?" than yelling "DON'T PUT THAT IN THERE! IT DOESN'T GO IN THERE!" at me.

I put the cake into the oven, set the timer. We licked some spatulas, piled up some bowls to clean later, hugged the baby who had been wanting some Mama love (because of course the 10 minutes that Mama is busy, Dada is no longer good enough).

I sat down to start writing this post, and already the house smells like chocolate cake!

It came out of the pan easily. Yay for Nordicware! A dusting of powdered sugar and I had a cake.

One of the things I look forward to the most is when my children know how to read a recipe and I can just turn them loose in the kitchen with minimal guidance and see what happens.

P.S. the cake tasted fantastic! It stayed moist even two days after baking. This is my new go-to chocolate recipe for as long as I have applesauce!