Spiced Cranberry Bundt Cake - Day #13 of Food Librarian's I Like Big Bundts 3

Spiced Cranberry Bundt

I Like Big Bundts - Day #13

Happy Saturday! It's Day #13 of I Like Big Bundts...my crazy marathon of 30 Bundts in 30 days! I hope you celebrate National Bundt Day on November 15th!

Today's Bundt is really special! It's Dorie Greenspan's Spiced Cranberry Bundt. I made it with Mary of Popsicles and Sandy Feet when I visited her earlier this month in Connecticut (see my BlogMary post here). It's fitting that we made a Dorie Greenspan recipe because Dorie, without knowing it, brought Mary and I together!

In 2008, Mary and I were both in the online group Tuesdays with Dorie...baking our way through Dorie Greenspan's Baking from My Home to Yours cookbook. Mary wrote me an email starting with "I'm in Tuesdays with Dorie too..." asking for Los Angeles restaurant recommendations...and a friendship was born. Thanks Dorie for not only your delicious recipes and wonderful cookbooks, but for helping two people named Mary meet!

The submission info can be found here! Just submit by November 24, 2011 and I'll send you a button for baking along with me!


We made our cake by pulverizing some slivered almonds for the almond flour, and toasted some almonds for the batter. East Coast Mary had a bag of cranberries in the freezer (something I must do this year) so we had frozen cranberries and dried cranberries. This bundt has a delicious combo of spices: Chinese five-spice powder, ground ginger and ground cinnamon.



Recap of I Like Big Bundts 3:
Day #1: Buttercake Bakery's Marble Bundt Cake
Day #2: Lemon Bliss Bundt
Day #3: Double-Chocolate Bundt Cake with Ganache Glaze
Day #4: Spice Bundt Cake with Brown Butter Vanilla Bean Glaze
Day #5: Gingery Pumpkin Breakfast Bundt
Day #6: Maida Heatter's Budapest Coffee Cake Bundt
Day #7: Dark Chocolate Bundt
Day #8: Banana Chocolate Chip Bundt
Day #9: Apple Spice Bundt
Day #10: Pumpkin Spice Bundt
Day #11: Doll Bundt Cake
Day #12: Light Chocolate Bundt with Coffee Glaze

Recipe: Click here for recipe on Bon Appetite site

Bundt Pan: Traditional 12-cup Bundt Pan

Pumpkin-Apple Spiced Bundt Cake - Day #3 of I Like Big Bundts

Day 3 of I Like Big Bundts: 30 Days of Bundt Cakes

Thanks to my friend JustJenn of JustJennDesigns (check out her great stationery!) for making the logo!

It's Day 3 of I Like Big Bundts: 30 Days of Bundt Cakes...and today it's a yummy fall treat! For those just joining me on this crazy baking endeavour, I'm making 30 days of Bundts leading up to November 15th - National Bundt Day.

And, please people, I'm not just doing this for my health! ;) I'm hoping to inspire you to make a Bundt cake! Let me know if you do...Mary Ann of Meet Me in the Kitchen and Maria of Two Peas and their Pod both made Bundts this weekend!

I met Amy of StreamingGourmet at the Foodbuzz Open House and BlogHer Food in San Francisco. She is posting 31 days of pumpkin recipes on her blog! You have to check it out and I'm sure you'll get lots of ideas.

I, of course, was drawn to the Bundt cake: Pumpkin-Apple Spiced Bundt Cake!

I used two cups of granny smith apples...diced into small bite-sized pieces.

Don't worry if the mix gets a bit curdled. It'll all come together in the end.

See? All came together! Yum. Fall in a Bundt pan.

Apple and pumpkin. Friends forever.
This cake is delicious.
Hands down.
Make this cake!

It is light, moist, full of fall flavors and Not. Too. Sweet. With "only" 1 cup of sugar, the flavors of the pumpkin and apple aren't overwhelmed by sweetness.

See you back here tomorrow and every day from now til National Bundt Day (November 15th) for another Bundt! - mary the food librarian

Recipe:
Pumpkin-Apple Spiced Bundt Cake
from StreamingGourmet blog

I Like Big Bundts recap:
The Beginning: The Food Librarian cannot tell a lie, I Like Big Bundts
Day 1: Pumpkin Spice Bundt with Buttermilk Icing
Day 2: Chocolate-Cinnamon Bundt Cake with Mocha Icing

(Edited to fix the name of Amy's blog! Sorry about that. Her great blog is called StreamingGourmet. Check it out!)

Pumpkin Spice Bundt with Buttermilk Icing - Day #1 of I Like Big Bundts

Bundt #1

As we begin Day 1 of I Like Big Bundts: 30 Days of Bundt Cakes, let me point out why the Bundt pan rocks my world. Here are just a few reasons:

1. Cake : Frosting ratio
I love cake. I don't like frosting. Thus, the Bundt has the perfect ratio of cake to frosting.

2. "Divide batter between cake pans" and "Rotate pans" doesn't exist
I'm horrible at getting equal quantities of cake batter in those 9" round pans. I bring out the scale and do it by weight...but who has the time for that at 4:30 am? With the Bundt, you just pop the batter into the pan, smooth out the top and you are ready to go. And no rotating...it just goes in the center of the oven. Yes, the Bundt puts the Ahhhh in Awesome.

3. You can pass it off as a breakfast food
You know how people think Pop Tarts are breakfast foods? (yes, this breaks the hearts of nutritionists, but work with me here as I build upon that fallacy). With a Bundt cake, people associate it with a coffee cake (obviously a breakfast food...it has the word Coffee in it!) and other tea cakes. So have a bite 24/7...it's okay.

I can go on and on. And I will during the next 29 days, so I have to save some of them for later!

So, let's get to the inaugural Bundt!

This recipe is from the (weep) recently departed Gourmet magazine (November 2005 issue).

Super easy to pull together, this recipe uses canned pumpkin (have you secured your stash during this pumpkin shortage?), butter, buttermilk (as the name implies!) and the spices are cinnamon and allspice (if you are a Tuesdays with Dorie baker, you should have some left from the recent Allspice Muffin!)

The result is a really soft and moist cake. It got thumbs up at the library and I hope you enjoy it as well.

The icing is light (buttermilk and powdered sugar) and provides a nice bit of sweetness, but it can be skipped if you want. A quick dust of powdered sugar would suffice as well.

Remember, come back every day from now til National Bundt Day, November 15th for another Bundt! - mary the food librarian

Recipe:
Pumpkin Spice Bundt with Buttermilk Icing
from Epicurious (Gourmet, November 2005)

Thanks to my friend JustJenn of JustJennDesigns (check out her great stationery!) for making the logo!

Allspice Crumb Muffins - Tuesdays with Dorie

For this week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection, Kayte of Grandma’s Kitchen Table chose Allspice Crumb Muffins, page 16 of Dorie's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours.

Ah. The muffin.

Such a lovely little mini cake that takes no time at all. And no frosting to fuss with. Score.

This one uses Allspice as the secret ingredient. (Although with the name Allspice Crumb Muffin, I guess it ain't a big secret! :)

I don't use allspice much...and I had to head to Penzeys Spice to pick up a new container. Ahhh. Nothing like fresh spices.

I think my topping should have formed a bit more. My topping wasn't crumby enough and sorta spread out on muffin. I'll have to see how my other Tuesdays with Dorie friend made theirs.

Thanks Kayte of Grandma’s Kitchen Table for a yummy pick!

Be sure to check out the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers!

P.S. Happy Birthday to my niece Hailey!!

Recipe:
Kayte of Grandma’s Kitchen Table
Dorie's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours (page 16-17)

Honey Spice Cake in Chrysanthemum Bundt

I can stop at any time.
Really.

Caitlin the Engineer Baker seems to think I have a problem. To quote her tweet: I think you have a problem. A bundt pan problem. If you need, I can stage an intervention and take some off your hands...

Yes, I just bought TWO new Bundt pans. However, in my defense, I MAKE a lot of Bundts but don't have that many pans...I have the 12 c Nordic Ware traditional Bundt, the 6 mini Bundt pan and the 12 mini-mini Bundt pan, and the tree looking Bundt. Sure, that's probably more than most people, but wouldn't you say that it isn't the Amy Winehouse of Bundt collections?

Well, now that I'm adding these two new pans...that does bring it up to 6 Bundt pans...with more on my wish list.

Oh darn. I know I'm going to run into Caitlin at BlogHerFood in SF next month and I'm going to end up in a room with Jeff VanVonderen of Intervention.

First up, the super duper pretty Chrysanthemum Bundt. You could put sludge in this and it would be pretty, no?

I made the Honey Spice Cake that is on the cardboard sleeve that covers the Bundt pan! Like a recipe from the back of the box, or in this case, the back of a Bundt. It is dairy free. (I'm in week two of my no dairy, doctor imposed three-week torture test. And of course, I'm going to San Francisco this weekend and can't have butter?! Ugh.) Honestly, I think the cake is prettier than it tastes. It was okay, but it didn't quite rock my world.

I think I should tap the pan on the counter next time...do you think that would remove some of the bubbles I got on top?

Honey Spice Cake
Adapted from Nordic Ware
1. Grease and flour the heck out of your Bundt. (My words there. I use shortening and flour and a pastry brush. This sucker better come out so spend time doing this!)
2. Mix 1 c hot water with 1 t instant espresso powder (or instant coffee), and set aside.
3. Mix 1 c honey, 3/4 c sugar, 1/2 c veggie oil (I used olive oil because that's what I had on hand), 4 eggs in a large bowl. The instructions say "until very light and fluffy" but I never got fluffy, even after adding the eggs one at a time. I got soupy, but never fluffy.
4. Mix together in a separate bowl: 3 c all-purpose flour, 2 t baking powder, 1 t baking soda, 1/2 t salt 1/2 t ground cloves, 1/2 t allspice (I added 1/4 t cinnamon because I love cinnamon).
5. I alternated the dry with the coffee mixture, beginning and ending with flour.
6. Pour into pan (it gets pretty full but doesn't overflow) and bake in 325 degree oven for 50-60 minutes. Cool 10 minutes before depanning.
7. Cool completely and dust with powdered sugar.