Cocoa Spice Snacking Cake

For several weekends this month, we were too sick to bother baking an evening dessert treat. The past 2 weekends, we've been busy enough that we don't have time to make anything too involved. Quick & easy is what we needed, or a trip to the grocery store for dessert, but that's not as good as homemade dessert. Loaf cakes or 9x9 cakes seem quick & easy - mix the batter and bake. Many years ago, I made a Cocoa Spice Snacking Cake from a cookbook my mom had (Hershey's Fabulous Desserts) so I pulled out the cookbook, realized we had everything except the applesauce, added it to the weekend grocery list, and Sunday afternoon we baked.

It is very quick & easy. Mix together wet ingredients with cocoa, add to dry ingredients, mix well, pour into pan, bake. The recipe uses a 9x9 pan which is just the right the size for the 2 of us. It's very moist, lots of cinnamon & nutmeg flavor. Yum! Even though these look like brownies, they definitely aren't. None of that rich, fudgy, chocolate flavor, which is fine with me. SP cut it into 16 squares, just enough for a few bites of dessert in the evening.

We'd definitely make this again. It seems better suited for fall with the cinnamon & nutmeg flavors and the applesauce, but it's not as if winter has left us yet - it was still pretty windy & chilly over the weekend. This cake is a wonderful treat with a cup of hot tea.

Recipe here.

Our changes:

• we used butter, not margarine
• we omitted the nuts & raisins