Clementine Spice Cake and Cup Cakes

Got the inspiration from Katie Goodman . Clementines are in season which means it's sweet and what a wonderful way to use them as the main ingredient to a cake.

For my version i used a yellow cake mix and added the spices. If you want to make this using a cake mix i would suggest to use a Spice Cake Mix so you don't have to add the necessary spices. The clementine juice, the molasses and the spices were a perfect combination. This is a beautiful cake.

The only problem i had was the cream cheese toppings. Katie's instruction is to spread the cheese topping to the cake batter. It didn't work for me, as i was spreading the cheese the batter tend to mix with the toppings which is why it was hard to spread the cheese. So i decided to bake the cake halfway enough to harden the top part of the cake which made it easy to spread the toppings.

Ingredients:
1 box yellow cake mix (follow the ingredients of the box mix)
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup molasses
1 cup fresh squeezed Clementine juice
zest of 2 Clementine

Creamy Citrus Cheese Topping:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
zest of 1 Clementine

Garnish:
2 Clementine, peeled and sliced into rounds


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a mixer beat together the cake mix ingredients, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg.

Add in the molasses, scraping down the sides with a spatula as needed.

Add the Clementine juice and the zest.

Spray a spring form pan with spray oil to grease. Pour cake batter in pan, set aside.

Using a mixer, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, egg, and Clementine zest. Set it aside.

Bake the cake half way or when the top of the cake is hard enough to pour cream cheese mixture over top of cake batter. Spread the cream cheese mixture evenly over the top, leaving a half inch border.

Lay slices of Clementine a top the cake, bake cake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes, or until cake is set. Cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove outer ring of spring form pan and cool an additional 25 minutes.