Snickerdoodle Cake with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting

I had something much healthier I'd intended to share today but something important happened.

As of today, August 15th, Anchorage has had 28 consecutive days of rain, breaking the previous record of 27 days of precipitation set back in 1951. You'd think this was Juneau or something by the way we're all mossy and schloppy around here.

But the strangest thing is that I haven't minded our extraordinarily wet and gray and cold summer--at least not much. And when we hit the rain record I decided to celebrate by making lots of comfort food. If it was going to be yet another rainy day then my house was going to at least smell really, really good.

In fact, I kind of hope it rains every day for another week or two--really set a record that will stand for an extra long time and one that will live in infamy. How cool. Literally.

So I made this cake (and created a new bread treat but that will have to wait for another post) and breathed very deeply as the delicious aroma flooded the house all afternoon. I actually have two variations on the recipe that I'll give you.

When I saw this recipe at Craftzine they'd adapted it from someone else and now I'm doing the same thing--apparently it's one that everyone can do a bit differently--but they used a box cake mix. I don't usually have cake mixes around the house so I used my own yellow cake recipe and modified it a bit and it worked perfectly. I'm giving both variations so you can choose which you'd prefer and giving you exactly no excuse for not trying out this delicious cake that tastes like one great big ol' snickerdoodle. And that's a good thing.

With Cake Mix:
1 pkg yellow cake mix
1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup applesauce
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

From Scratch:
2 1/3 cup flour
1 1/3 cup sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/3 cup milk
1/2 cup melted butter
3 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon cinnamon

For Frosting:
1/2 cup butter
4 ounces cream cheese
3 1/4 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon butter extract/flavoring (whatever it's called)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

No matter which cake mix you use, choose your path and mix all the cake ingredients in a large bowl in order listed and beat on high for about three minutes.

Divide batter between three greased and floured 8-inch round cake pans (or one large 9X13 pan) and bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Meanwhile, for frosting, beat the butter and creamed cheese together until creamy. Add the vanilla and butter extract and combine then add the powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition and adding the milk as you go to keep it from getting too hard. Once it's to spreading consistency add the cinnamon.

When the cake is cool frost and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar on top.

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