Stepping up to the challenge: Honey Applesauce Cake, part I

Saturday, February 07, 2009

This month’s challenge to use local sweeteners is rather timely. In the week leading up to this challenge, the web was a buzz with exposés of the government’s commercial sweetener of choice, high fructose corn syrup. To catch up on the latest dirt check out these posts at Huffingtonpost, “Our Melamine”, “Is High Fructose Corn Syrup Turning us into Mad Hatters” and this post linking high fructose corn syrup to autism, the last two can be found double posted at Civil Eats.

For most people reading this post, avoiding high fructose corn syrup is probably nothing new. For me it is a way of life. Some of you may have realized too that regular highly refined, who knows what the trade circumstances were like white sugar is not ideal either, if you are eating for your health and environment, that is. There is sucanat and organic evaporated cane juice. The Nourishing Gourmet blog offers a useful guide to natural sweeteners. On this same blog I came across a recipe for a honey seven minute frosting which I hope to test out asap for a honey applesauce cake I am thinking up and hope to soon be baking…

Now I admit to regularly using evaporated cane juice and sucanat, but why not consider local sources of sweetness? We all have a sweet tooth, but for those who strive to eat local or eco, why should we feel sheepish about having sugar shipped to our tables? Or, even worse, why should we abstain from sweetening our lives altogether?! We just need to think outside of the Dominos Sugar box. Nicole listed a few local options in the last post (and at the Clark Park market today I saw local molasses, lined up next to the local honey and maple syrup!), and to that one might add that most fruits are very sweet and one could certainly take a stab at beet sugar.

Which brings us to applesauce! What is sweeter than apples slowly cooked until all of their natural sugars are released? How about slowly cooking them in some local cider? Even sweeter! Which is what is currently happening on my stove top. I hope to use this applesauce tomorrow as I experiment with making an applesauce cake with honey instead of sugar. I need to be careful to not make this too sweet, because I am eager to try that frosting! I’ll keep you posted…