Spiced Applesauce Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

This dessert isn't particularly summery but I had a large jar of applesauce from the CSA that I wanted to put to use so I made this applesauce cake with it. I also cheated on my self-imposed "use little to no butter" rule as this recipe calls for a whole stick of butter for the cake part, as well as three additional tablespoons for the icing. But! It was totally worth it; these are fluffy-light and delicious. I ended up making muffins instead of a full cake. The spices - ginger, cinnamon and cloves - really come through nicely so there is a well-rounded flavor between the applesauce, the spices and the cream cheese icing. I topped some of the muffins with sliced almonds. The other substitution I made was to use rosewater instead of vanilla extract for the batter and the icing, since I had run out of vanilla. These would also be excellent without the icing but I was feeling a little extravagant; calories be damned.