Muscovado Sugar Cake

I have this friend. She’s a foodie friend.

Do you have those?

We’re eerily alike in some ways, and I love it.

Her and her husband were the ones that gave Nick and me some local steak as a thank you gift a few months ago. So, yeah. They get us, and we get them.

One thing you can always catch us chatting about is food – gardening, canning, cake, cookies, icing, whatever.

And lucky for me, she recently gifted me two new items:

A jar of her homemade Pear Cardamom Butter and a bag of Muscovado Sugar.

Have you ever used Muscovado Sugar? If not, you should put it on your wish list.

It’s intense. Imagine dark brown sugar times 10. It has a very high molasses content, making it a deep, rich sugar that perfumes your kitchen with warmth as soon as you open the bag.

And while I can’t take credit for this cake recipe, it’s amazing.

Muscovado Sugar Cake

I’m happy this isn’t a layer cake. Layer cakes are not easy for me yet – I still need some practice…and an actual cake stand instead of the upside down bowl and lid I use.

But this spice cake may be my new favorite fall dessert.

It’s spicy and sweet and fun to make. I’ve never seen a cake recipe that calls for you to cut the butter into the flour as if you were making biscuits. And I love the addition of fruit butter. I used pear, but it would be just as delicious with apple or pumpkin.

The cake recipe didn’t call for a frosting, but I didn’t have any heavy cream to whip up so I just mixed up a quick icing with cream cheese, a little bit of butter, milk, powdered sugar, and a pinch of cinnamon.

After trying it with the cream cheese icing, I’d definitely recommend it! I bet it would be good with just a dollop of sweetened whipped cream, but I loved the mix of spicy cake with tangy cream cheese and sweet dulce de leche drizzle.

Tagged as: cake, cream cheese, icing, muscovado sugar