Holiday party: Bourbon Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake

   I recently went to a good friend's home for a Holiday party and brought along with me a bundt cake that has become my favorite.  I've made many bundt cakes now but this cake really shined and may have aided in gaining me new friends!  

   I often clip recipes that look interesting to me from the New York Times as well as from various food magazines. Now I've got blogs to bookmark online too! So many recipes and so little time. I like recipes that look easy to do and sounds like the food will be tasty, but I also like challenging recipes for the days when I want to learn new skills.

   One of the recipes I clipped from several years ago that I've been wanting to try is Melissa Clark's Whiskey-soaked dark chocolate bundt cake. I am glad this month's bundt-a-month theme is Boozy December because this recipe is perfect for that! To learn more about bundt-a-month, see http://bakerstreet.tv/bundtamonth/ and Cake Duchess.  Back to my bundt, Melissa Clark writes good recipes - easy to follow, interesting flavor profiles and delicious results. This particular recipe always sounded intriguing to me. If you've followed my blog, you know that chocolate is one of my favorite foods.  But more than the fact that I love chocolate, chocolate goods are one of those items that almost always bring a smile to a gift recipient. I know that not everyone loves chocolate or cocoa. (Gasp!) But I have found that to most people, chocolate represents a kind of luxury. So for me, my various chocolate baked goods have been welcomed gifts to friends and colleagues.

   When I was thinking about what to bring to my friend's party, I thought I can't go wrong with chocolate.  Problem was other than my friend, her husband and children, I don't know the others at her party. I decided to take a gamble and go with Melissa's Whiskey-soaked dark chocolate cake. Wow, was I glad I did! The recipe sounded luxurious and simple enough to do, even after work one night. I was tired but determined to get a cake baked for my friend's party.  As I was mixing the bourbon with the cocoa and espresso powders, I was struck by just how much whiskey this recipe called for! I've read other similar recipes, like one for Kentucky Bourbon cake, but all called for half the amount of alcohol.  I mean, just look at that deep dark color of the sauce.  I could smell the bourbon from afar! 

I started to get worried because my friend really doesn't drink and I wasn't sure if her friends drank.  I may not get invited back for another party...

   I need not have worried because everyone at her party Loved the cake!   It was a cold windy day with some snow flakes floating in the air. I carried that cake and gifts through NJ Transit train then the NYC subway to my friend's home. Once there, my friend had lots of yummy savory items for us to enjoy.  She made delicious chicken wings and pernil.  Other friends had brought along little cupcakes and cookies for all the kids to enjoy.  We laughed and we ate.  We had coffee, talked, laughed and ate more. My new friends all generously told me how they loved the cake.  And I did too.

  

  I followed Melissa's recipe pretty closely (full recipe by clicking here). I used Valhrona cocoa powder and King Arthur Flour's espresso powder because that's what I had left from my other chocolate baked adventures. My cake was done in less than an hour so make sure you start checking your cake after around 50 minutes. I've read a lot of people say how hard it is to get the cake to come out of the bundt pan in one piece and I used to have the same problem.  My best solution has been the oil spray with flour.  Baker's Joy has it and so does Spectrum oil.  I've found it at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, and of course, at baking supply shops. The oil spray works like wonder for the bundt pan. Just spray all over the pan. If you have just oil spray, not one with flour, you can then dust your pan with flour, or in this case, cocoa powder after thoroughly spraying pan with oil.  Just tip pan around and turn it over to dump out extra powder. Also I used honey bourbon so I called my cake Bourbon Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake. 

   Whatever you called this cake, it is moist on the inside but the crust has a little crunch. It's not too sweet and it has a clear mocha taste.  Personally, I like cakes that are not too sweet so I actually went back for more slices. Just a fair warning, you can also taste the bourbon.  I don't think the alcohol is overwhelming, it adds to the depth of flavor. But this cake is not your usual store-bought chocolate cake, which I find is more sugar-sweet than anything else. This cake beautifully blends the alcohol and espresso with the chocolate into a decadent treat that you want to go back for again and again. Thanks Melissa for such a great recipe.  

   We ate so much of it that I do not have an extra slice to show you! 

Apple and Olive Oil Cake #Bundt a Month

   I read that November 15 is National Bundt Day. It's like the birthday for the bundt cake! I am a few days late for the bundt day but hey, better late than never! Life has been a little crazy around here but I had to find the time to bake this bundt cake. It's getting close to Thanksgiving, less than a week to go, so might as well think of it as a make-ahead Thanksgiving dessert. The seemingly energetic bakers Lora of Cake Duchess and Anuradha of Baker Street are hosting Bundt-a-Month. I am always happy to be able to use my beautiful bundt pan and this month's Bundt a Month theme is spice.  I like spices because I grew up with spices in all kinds of dishes, from savory to sweet. 

   When I saw that the theme is spices, I knew that I wanted to have cardamon in the cake. Not only do I have ground cardamon left from a canning project a couple months back, but I also that cardamon gives everything a clean taste.  I also wanted to use apples or pears because it is that time of year! I searched and found the Molly O'Neill recipe on the New York Times website for Olive Oil and Apple Cider Cake. It has the right proportions for my pan. I get lazy and don't want to re-calculate measurement so that it'll be right for my big bundt pan. This one sounded right for my needs but I made my own modifications. 

   I stopped by the farmer's market and got some fujis and suncrisps. I may have added in an empire as well. I added in cardamon and cinnamon while cooking down the apples. I also left many pieces of apples in the apple sauce. 

As the batter baked into a beautiful bundt, my house smelled of baked apples with a touch of cinnamon and cardamon.

   The original recipe can be found on the New York Times website: Olive Oil and Apple Cider Cake.  It's a wonderful recipe - easy with few ingredients. I wanted the apple to shine so I am calling mine Apple and Olive Oil cake.  I added in a teaspoon and half of ground cardamon and a teaspoon of cinnamon while the apples were cooking down into applesauce. I sprinkled it with confectioner sugar after it cooled a bit. This cake would be great with some whipped cream or more of the applesauce over a slice of bundt. The beauty of the bundt pan is that it makes simple delicious cakes look so pretty.  

Pumpkin Spice Bundt Cake with Buttermilk Icing #BundtaMonth

 I love my bundt pans.  It all started with a sale at Williams Sonoma years ago.  I got this bundt pan that made pretty bundts with shapes of violets on cake.  It was so pretty when I took my very first bundt cake (lemon from a WS mix) out of the oven.  I had a bit of trouble getting it out without ruining the pretty flowers on my cake.  Unfortunately, while it was delicious, it got a bit marred.  The perfectionist me was scarred for awhile from making bundt cakes.

Last year or the year before last, I discovered the wonderful Melissa Block's All Cakes Considered.  Her very first cake was a detailed description of how to bake a bundt cake! I was excited to try again.  Thanks to her wonderful instructions, I got it right and turned out a bundt cake that was not marred but had the pretty top. Emboldened, I tried again with the banana chocolate cake posted by Heidi Swanson of 101cookbooks (love her blog, her recipes and her photos).  It turned out beautifully.  I have since acquired the Anniversary bundt pan.

dry ingredients for cake

When I read that there was a #bundtamonth going on, I wanted to join. This is being hosted by Cake Duchess and Baker Street. This month's ingredient is Pumpkin.  At the same time, what am I going to do with a bundt cake that serves 16?! I tend to give away my bake goods to friends and neighbors but everyone is on some kind of diet.  Then a friend invited me to her party and my contribution is the Pumpkin Spice Bundt Cake with Buttermilk Icing.  My recipe is a conglomeration of a couple of similar recipes but mainly inspired by the recipe in Janice Cole's Chicken and Eggs. I wanted to make the salted caramel sauce in her recipe but I was missing some ingredients so I went with a simple buttermilk icing.Here again I used duck eggs like in my clafoutis. The cake turned out very moist and definitely has the taste of Fall - pumpkin. Mine does not have that porcelain white of that featured on Gourmet.com. If anyone knows how to achieve that white, please let me know.

batter in bundt pan ready for the oven

Pumpkin Spice Bundt Cake with Buttermilk Icing

Ingredients:
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 ts ground cinnamon
2 ts baking powder
1/2 ts baking soda
1 ts ground nutmeg
1 ts allspice
1/2 ts ground ginger
1/2 sea salt
2 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup sunflower oil (or canola)
4 eggs
One 15-ounce can solid-pack pumpkin

Icing:
1 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
2 tbs well-shaken buttermilk

The Cake: Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Grease a 12-cup Bundt pan with shortening and flour it then tap out excess.  I find the easiest way to do this is to use a oil spray with flour.  Spectrum sells it and I believe Trader Joe's has a version too. You can also use a pastry brush to fully oil the pan's inside.
Whisk together the flour, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg, salt, baking powder, baking soda in a bowl.
Combine the sugar and oil in a large bowl with an electric mixer at low speed, using the paddle attachment.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after adding each egg.  Beat in the pumpkin.  Slowly beat in the flour ingredients, beating until just blended and smooth.  No need to overbeat.  Pour into the Bundt pan.  Smooth the top.

Bake for 55 minutes or until a small skewer or cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.  Invert the cake onto the wire rack and remove the pan.

While cake is cooking, whisk together confectioner's sugar and buttermilk until smooth.  Drizzle over warm cake.  Continue cooling cake on rack.