applesauce and cakepops?

Hi there :) It has been a while but I promise I haven't been idle! There are a lot of things cooking in the Oh Taste and See test kitchen :P

To start off, we're introducing Oh Taste and See 2.0: new and improved! A huge thank you to my good friend A for taking it upon herself to redesign the logo and look of the new blog page. And just in time for the 2 year anniversary of Oh Taste and See (wowee :O)!

Like I mentioned in my previous post, this year will be a year of experimenting with the blog, and of course, with baking. So to start it all off, I thought it might be nice to revisit the recipe that inspired it all: cakepops! 

So, I've been making cakepops for a while now (as many can attest to, I think). But one of the problems I had yet to tackle was the fact that even though cakepops can last a relatively long time (being coated in chocolate and all), they don't maintain their appearance for that long. Specifically, the paper sticks I use start to turn yellow with oil residue almost as soon as they are made. It makes them look old and un-fresh, even though they've only been sitting there for a day or two. Normally I'm not too picky about the way my baked goods look (that's probably a lie), but I figured I've been making these for so long, it might be worth it to check it out.

I couldn't quite capture it in the lighting, but you can see a slight yellowness in the sticks.

So I did a bit of research and found out that the oil in the cake is what stains the sticks. Which makes sense but..how am I supposed to make cake without oil? Well turns out, one hack that people have tried is to use applesauce as an oil substitute in their cakepop cake. At first I was like whaaat a strange idea...I don't want my cake to taste like apples. But after I was assured that the taste wouldn't be affected, and saw some photographic evidence, I had to try it for myself. 

I set up a mini experiment where I made half a cake with the normal recipe, and half a cake with applesauce instead of oil. I used store-bought, unsweetened applesauce (which is surprisingly very sweet...maybe cooked apples taste sweeter than raw apples). Right away, I could see that the applesauce cake did not rise as much as the normal cake. It also baked faster by a few minutes (though I couldn't really do anything about that since I put them in the same pan...). 

Left: Oil cake, Right: Applesauce cake

Left: oil cake, Right: applesauce cake

The applesauce cake was definitely more dense, and it had a slight syrup-y taste, though it didn't exactly taste like apples. The texture was almost sticky, more like fudge or brownies than cake. It took a bit longer to crumble because of this, and it didn't "crumble" so much as "mush". Which ended up being okay because it required less frosting to hold it together. Ironically, the cake with more oil required more oil to hold it together..go figure. Overall, there was no visible difference between the two types of cake balls, although the applesauce cake had a slightly smaller yield (13 compared to normal 16).

Left two rows: apple, right two rows: oil

After coating with chocolate, I left the cakepops for a few days, just sitting on the kitchen counter. After just one day, I could already see the difference between the two sticks. I left them a bit longer just to see if the applesauce cake would eventually start leaking through. But after four days, the applesauce sticks were still pristine, while the oil sticks were almost completely yellow. 

Left: oil, Right: applesauce

Left: oil, Right: applesauce

Left: oil, Right: applesauce

In terms of appearance, applesauce was a success! But what about taste? Well, the texture was very similar between the two. The applesauce cakepop was slightly fudgier because of its natural density, but because there was very little fat (only from the frosting), the fudginess was more like chewiness. Taste-wise, it was quite difficult to tell the difference at first, but I think the chocolate-y sweet flavor was more obvious in the oil cakepop, probably due to the fact that all the fat serves as a great carrier for the sugar, and is able to coat your mouth with it. 

Left: oil, Right: apple. Pretty much indistinguishable from the inside

So in conclusion, I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome of the applesauce cakepops. But I think just the fact that it's aesthetically pleasing doesn't completely justify the taste compromise. So next time, I'm going to try half and half of oil and applesauce, to see if I can find a sweet balance. Maybe the sticks will still turn oily, but the use of less oil might delay the yellowing process. 

I know some of you are probably thinking...why not just skip the sticks and go for cake balls? Well...I'm working on it ok xD

Happy Valentine's day/Lent/Chinese New Year!
-M