Happy Bundt Day! (A story told in memes)

The celebration of Bundt Day has become something of a regular event around here.  (Past blog posts on the subject can be found here and here.)

A few weeks ago I started browsing Pinterest for Bundt recipes.  I was gonna knock it out of the park this year.  It was gonna be a full-fledged Bundtpalooza.  I found a recipe for a Samoa Bundt cake (recipe here).  Samoa cookies are my favorite Girl Scout cookie.  Making a Bundt form of my favorite once-a-year cookie seemed like a fantastic idea.

Fast forward to yesterday (I made my cake yesterday so I could tell you about it today).

Here's me heading out the door to the grocery store: Oooh.  Don't forget the recipe for the Samoa Bundt Cake.  Yes, that's a great idea.  But I don't have time.  I'll just check the recipe from my phone at the store.

Here's me driving to the store: Local radio stations stink. Katy Perry's "Roar" is not such a great song that it needs to be on 24-7, people.  Local drivers don't know how to navigate a 4 way stop.  YOU CALL THAT A STOP!?!

Here's me at the store: Let's check that recipe.  Hmm...note from the recipe creator that says "This cake took nearly all day to make."

Hold the phone.  A cake that takes ALL DAY to make?  And it's already noon?  And I still have a week's worth of groceries to buy, cart home, and put away before I can get my bake on?  

So here's me in the baking aisle, basically trying to figure out a Bundt recipe idea on the fly: I want it to be chocolate.  And caramel.  And nuts.  Ooooh...a turtle Bundt!  Great idea.  I know I have a chocolate cake mix at home.  I can make caramel from scratch.  I need some pecans and we'll be all set.  I can make this happen, recipe or no.

So I make it home.  I get to baking.  I decided to make my caramel first.  I used Pioneer Woman's Caramel Sauce recipe.  Say what you will about the Pioneer Woman, but girlfriend can cook.  I've never had a recipe of hers that I haven't liked.  Her caramel sauce recipe is basic, but it's easy, fast, and versatile.  It's great on ice cream.  If you cook it for a little less time, it's great for dipping apple slices for a snack.  If you cook it longer, it gets thicker, and that's the state I was going for in this Bundt.  A nice, thick, ropy caramel sauce.

Caramel sauce ingredients are in the pan, melting and getting nice and gooey.  I decide to start on the cake mix.  I've been buying up cake mixes lately when they're on sale for a dollar (don't judge - it's cheap, it's easy, and my family cannot tell the difference between "from scratch" and "from box").  I know I've got at least one chocolate cake mix in the pantry.  Possibly a devil's food cake too.  I just know I want a nice chocolate cake to be the base of this Bundt.   Go over to the pantry.  Guess what? No. Chocolate. Cake. Mix.

Wait!  There in the back!  What is it?  German Chocolate Cake mix.  Hmm.  Better than nothin'.

So I get the cake mix going.  My caramel sauce is bubbling away nicely.  I've got approximately 20 minutes before Middle and Youngest Child come home from school.  I'll be able to get the cake into the oven by then, and we can rake some leaves while the cake bakes.

Phone rings.  It's Middle Child.  "Um...Hello?  Mom?  I missed the bus. Can you come to school and get me?"

So I'm rapidly greasing a Bundt pan, and rushing everything else so that I can get the cake in the oven and rush off to school.  I turn off the heat on the caramel sauce before it's quite ready.  It's not as thick as I'd like and I don't have time to cool it, but you've all figured out by now that I'm a real mom and not a professional blogger (my cheap photography was probably your first clue; second clue is probably the fact that I only blog once in a blue moon because I have no time).  I have to get the kid, the cake can be rushed and less than perfect.

So, pour one half of the cake batter into the very well greased Bundt pan.   Then pour 1/2 of the less-than-thick, not-so-much-cooled caramel sauce on top of the batter.  Sprinkle with pecans.  (In my dream world where kids don't miss buses, this was going to be an amazing caramel-pecan tunnel in the middle of the Bundt.)  Top with remaining cake batter.  Pop into oven.  As you're popping it into the oven, hear the front door open.  Hey, it's Middle Child, who found a ride home with the neighbor girl.  Count to ten and take a deep breath.

So we wait for Youngest child to get home, then we go rake leaves with a timer stuck into my pocket so I can take the cake out in time.  Rake, rake, rake.  Realize that raking with kids is just about as effective as raking with puppies.  Timer goes off.  Back inside, test the cake for doneness.  Let it cool on the counter for a bit before taking out of the pan.  Finish raking.  Drag Youngest Child out of the leaf pile in the street.  Take Youngest Child in the house.  Attempt to release cake from Bundt pan.

Anybody who has ever made a Bundt will understand The Moment.  It's the moment of truth in Bundt cake baking.  When you unmold your cake, it will either come out in one smooth whoosh, or it won't. The Moment is the success/fail moment of the last hour.  You get a pretty, nicely molded Bundt, or you get a semi-nicely molded Bundt on the bottom with the rest stuck into the pan.  Guess which one I got?

Yeah.  Sigh.

Here's what I think happened.  The caramel was too thin, and too hot.  It very quickly meandered to the bottom of the pan, and took the pecans with it.  Once at the bottom of the pan, the caramel continued to cook until it became toffee.  (A nice, delicious, nutty toffee that I later scraped out of the pan with a spoon and consoled myself with as I looked at my sad, disfigured Bundt.)  Some of the cake stuck to the toffee and the rest released nicely.  Hence, Ugly-Not-Really-a-Turtle-Bundt.

But frosting!  Frosting fixes everything!  And I still have some leftover caramel sauce to use as a garnish on top.  I'm gonna frost and garnish the snot out of this cake! It's still salvageable!  Yes!

I microwaved some canned frosting to make it liquid-y.  (If I were a professional blogger, it would be ganache, but again, I'm a mom who is running out of time before supper prep needs to begin.)  Poured about 3/4 of it over the cake, letting it pool at the bottom.  Then I started drizzling the caramel sauce over the top.  Again, it was too thin and pretty much just rolled off the cake.  At this point, I really didn't even care and just laughed.  Threw some more pecans on top, and called it done.

Do you want to see what it looked like in the end?

Here you go:

A little lumpy, a little bumpy, and I'm not sure I'd serve it to company or take it to a pot luck, but it's okay.

Taste verdict?  It was good.  Caramel really suits German Chocolate cakes, so those flavors blended nicely.  But the caramel tended to pool away from the cake and frosting.   Overall, however, it was a perfectly good cake and everyone at the table gave it a thumbs up.

The final take-away?  It's cake.  Cake is good.  However you celebrate Bundt Day, enjoy - and may your Bundt not stick to the pan.

Happy National Bundt Day! (Featuring Pumpkin-Oatmeal Bundt)

Today is National Bundt Day.  If you didn't read my post from earlier this week, go back and read it to discover my history with this day. (You don't have to read it really, there's no history - Bundt cake is just a really good idea, and I wanted cake on Bundt Day 2010.  But I've celebrated each Bundt Day since then.  Because I like cake, y'all.)

Last week, my friend Ruhama (who started me on this Bundt Day broo-ha-ha) put a reminder on Facebook that Bundt Day was coming up.  A good idea on her part, really, because Bundt Day doesn't get all the fanfare and promotions of bigger holidays like Halloween or Christmas.  It kind of gets lost in the cracks, and that's just tragic because it's a holiday about cake.  So I started thinking about what kind of Bundt I'd make this year.  Seriously - I didn't procrastinate this year and glob a bunch of things together.  I actually planned ahead and looked through my recipe books.

I settled on a recipe from a cookbook my mom gave me many years ago, Have Breakfast with Us II, a collection of recipes from bed & breakfast owners across Wisconsin.  The recipes are all breakfast recipes, of course, but of the ones that I've tried, they've all been good.  And you've gotta think, these are the recipes for food they serve their guests - it must be good.  So although I've never made this particular recipe before, I figured it'd be pretty good.

The original recipe is called Morning Pumpkin Coffeecake and it is meant to be a Bundt cake.  I'm sure it's a lovely cake to serve with brunch at a Victorian B&B, but I can't get my stuff together early enough in the morning to make a breakfast Bundt.  So this will be dessert tonight.  Cake is cake, after all.  (I think this is Clue #1 why I wouldn't be a good B&B proprietor - "What?  You want me to cook you breakfast?  Before I've had my coffee.  Pfft.  Whatever.  Even my kids know they are on their own for breakfast.  It's every mortal for themselves around here, at least until I've got 2 cups of coffee on board."  I would maybe make a good Supper & Bed proprietor, though.  I'm usually together by then.)

So besides changing the name of the cake, I also modified the ingredients a bit to cut sugar and fat.  The original called for 1 and 1/2 sticks of butter or margarine.  I cut the butter in half and subbed Greek yogurt for part of it.  The original also called for 1.5 cups of brown sugar.  I cut the brown sugar in half and subbed in Splenda.  The original called for 6 egg whites and I just used 3 whole eggs (I don't have a problem with whole eggs, nutritionally speaking.  I do have a problem, however, with wasting 6 perfectly good yolks.)  I also didn't have the amount of raisins called for by the original recipe, so I used some dried cranberries, and I also added some chopped walnuts and increased spices.

Okay, let's get ready to rock Bundt Day 2012.

First step, assemble your ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1.25 cups old-fashioned oats
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 6 tablespoons butter (or 3/4 of a stick)
• 1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon plain Greek yogurt
• 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup Splenda
• 1 can 100% 
• pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup cranberries
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat your oven to 350 and spray your Bundt pan with cooking spray.  Mix dry ingredients (flour, oats, baking powder, salt and spices) in a bowl.  In bowl of stand mixer, combine softened butter, Greek yogurt, brown sugar, and Splenda.  

Beat until creamy and light.  Mix in pumpkin and eggs, combine thoroughly.  Gradually add flour mixture by spoonfuls until all of the flour mixture is evenly combined with wet ingredients.  Add in raisins, cranberries, and walnuts, combine. 

Pour cake batter into prepared Bundt.  Bake 60-70 minutes, until toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean.  Cool for 10 minutes, then unmold from Bundt pan.  Cake can then be frosted, glazed or dusted with powdered sugar. (I glazed mine with a small amount of a cinnamon-powdered sugar glaze.)

Nutrition: Depending on how big you cut your slices, this cake is fairly decent (calorie-wise) in its unfrosted state: 218 calories for 1/12 of the cake, or 262 for 1/10.  Nutritionally speaking, it's okay.  For 1/12 of the cake, you'll get 10 grams of fat.  Which isn't great, but it's less fat than what you'd get in a traditional boxed cake.  Sugars are only 6.3 grams, so that's not too bad, and total carbs are 29g.  

Verdict: I'll post an update in this spot later tonight, after we've had this cake for dessert.  :)  Check back later.

Updated (10-16-12): Sorry about not posting an update regarding the cake last night.  I've got kids, you know?  Anyhow...it's a good cake recipe.  The flavor is very good, and it's decently moist.  I thought it would have benefited more from cream cheese frosting (as opposed to the glaze), but my husband said it was fine the way it is.  It would definitely be a good choice for a breakfast or brunch spread - I think it was very "muffin-like" and could probably be adapted into outstanding muffins quite easily.  The kids gave it mixed reviews - one kid opted to skip it completely as he's not a huge fan of pumpkin to begin with (and evidently, he's also not a big fan of frosting-less cake).  Middle One ate all of hers and said it was good.  Little One ate parts of hers, which is saying something because when we have cake, she usually eats the frosting and leaves the cake behind.

A Prelude to National Bundt Day

Wednesday is National Bundt Day.  This will be the 3rd year I've celebrated.  To prepare, I dug up this item I wrote the first time I celebrated National Bundt Day.  Enjoy:

Happy National Bundt Day (Or, Adventures in Cake Baking with Toddlers in Tow)
Originally written and posted on Facebook, November 15, 2010


Earlier today, I posted a link to The Food Librarian's National Bundt Day celebration.  Inspired, I decided to make a Banana Nutella Bundt Cake.  Ruhama and Amie, food bloggers extraordinaire, asked me to share my results.  Here goes:

Note: for the complete recipe, visit Food Librarian's page.

Step 1: Find the Bundt pan.  Hope that, because you are trying to sell your house and erase any trace of actual human beings living in your home, that you didn't box it up and put it in the storage unit.

Where, or where, could it be?

Step 2: Realize that when last used (probably sometime during the second Bush administration), the Bundt pan was not cleaned thoroughly by "someone" (me) and there's still some German Chocolate cake crusted on one edge.

Step 3: Do dishes.  Wash Bundt pan, and, for kicks and giggles, all the other assorted dirty dishes lying about.  Drain sink, dry Bundt pan.

Step 4: Refill sink with bubbles because your 2 year old is having a fit that you didn't let her play in bubbles and you know you can't bake when there's a 2 year old in full tantrum mode in the middle of the kitchen. 

Bubbles!

Step 5: Prep ingredients.  Realize the paddle attachment for your Kitchen Aid is - you guessed it - dirty from making cookies the other day and sitting in the dishwasher.  Remove from dishwasher and wash by hand, stealing bubbles from 2 year old's sink full of bubbles as neccesary.

Step 6: Mix dry ingredients.  Scoop Nutella into a bowl as directed.  Realize, with a sigh, that you are using up the last of the Nutella and your son won't have any for his toast the next morning.  Wonder now if the cake is worth it, or if you should just scrap it so he can have his toast with Nutella in the morning.  Decide that hormones trump a kid's ingrained breakfast patterns and you're PMS-ing and you NEED cake more than he needs toast.  (Debate about running to Target later in the day for the big tub o' Nutella.  Because while hormonal, you're also a mom who wants her kids to be happy.)

Mmmm...Nutella...

Step 7: Set aside empty Nutella jar to lick clean with a spoon later on.  It is that time of the month, after all.

Step 8: Hear 2 year old say "Mommy look at me!" and realize she's putting on a beard of bubbles.  And getting water all over the kitchen cabinets you paid $$$$ to have redone a few months ago.  Rethink your decision at Step 4.  Consider it was still a good idea, but drain the sink of water and hope that she doesn't eat too many more bubbles.

Step 9: Cream butter and sugar.

Step 10: Add eggs to batter.  Because you're slightly OCD about eggs and salmonella, wash hands thoroughly.

Step 11: Add bananas and yogurt (Or in my case, sour milk because we just don't have plain yogurt laying about. Strawberry-mango drinkable yogurt for the kids, yes; blackberry-pomegranate Activia for the grown-ups, yes; but no plain yogurt).

Step 12: Add flour mixture, mix until everything is combined.

Step 13: Scoop out 1 cup of the banana cake mixture and fold into Nutella.  Get Nutella mix on your fingers.  Find yourself ready to lick Nutella-y goodness off your fingers until your OCD kicks in again and whispers "salmonella..."  Wash hands again.

Smells and looks chocolatey, but it's not edible yet.  Unless you like salmonella pudding.

Step 14: Scoop plain batter into pan; realize as you do that one chunk of butter didn't cream with the sugar properly.  Consider (briefly! briefly!) chucking it all because it probably won't turn out, but no:  we want cake.  We need cake.  We sacrificed our son's breakfast Nutella for this cake.  We're gonna have cake, gol-darnit!

Step 15: Scoop Nutella batter on top of plain batter.  Swirl with a knife.  Be a tiny bit sad that it's not swirling just as you'd like it to.  And you can draw swirls no problem...they're one of your favorite doodles to draw when on hold.  That and 3-D boxes.  And stick people.

Swirled (not so much) batter ready to go in the oven.

Step 16: Ready to go in the oven.  Bake at 350 for 50 minutes.  Survey disaster left behind.  Clean it up, along with counters because there could be raw egg on them, and you're a little OCD about raw egg.

Step 17: When the timer goes off, use a toothpick to check for doneness while your 2 year old dances around the kitchen singing "I want cakey!  I want cakey!"  If the toothpick comes out clean, let the cakey cool for 15 minutes.

Step 18: Unmold to a plate.  Immediately notice what became of the un-creamed butter chunk (Note: I claim Uncreamed Butter Chunks as the name of my next band.) and that there is an obvious chunk of overly buttery cake that stuck to the pan.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar, trying (in vain, it turns out) to conceal your band-name-inspiring butter goof.

Finished product.  Wanna play "Spot the Butter Goof?"

Verdict: A great cake recipe.  Kind of crisp on the outside, very moist and flavorful on the inside.  Can't really taste the Nutella, per se, but there's definitely a nummy chocolate taste mingling with the banana.