Lately I have been getting lots of miles on my bundt pan – enough that I am considering buying a fancier bundt mold just to mix things up a bit! This week, since it’s the last week of September and I promised plenty of apple filled recipes, I am making an apple bundt cake!
Making bundt cakes always make me think of the movie My Big, Fat Greek Wedding where the mother of the bride doesn’t know what bundt is or how to pronounce bundt (hence the title of this post), and then winds up making an odd “vase” out of it with some flowers?? A hilarious scene from a hilarious movie!
The recipe calls for nuts and raisins, which I typically leave out of all my baked goods except for scones, and I settled on almonds and raisins and decided to use them just for the heck of it – why not? I hadn’t baked them into anything in a while and its nice to mix things up a bit!
Everyday, Mei’s grasp and reach seem to go just a bit further than it did the previous day, so little by little my operative counter space has been diminishing. She is ready for a high chair and so am I – I need my counters back! So the bulk of the preparation for this cake happened during a nap. All the parts were measured and mixed as much as they could – I can’t use any “power tools” ie my immersion blender (with a whisk attachment, for this job), while she is sleeping, so that part had to wait until after she had woken up from her nap, then the whole thing was finally mixed together and put in the oven.
I typically chose some sort of glaze for my bundts but decided to use some cream cheese frosting instead, and what a great idea that was! It made the final apple bundt taste somewhat savory and kinda like carrot cake – only there were no carrots in this cake! Since frosting hides the beautiful mold of the bundt pan, I liberally frosted this cake and then sprinkled some hazelnuts on top (why not?) and then it was done!
The cake was moist, full of apple, and delicious down to the last scraping of the frosting from the plate with the fork. A perfect fall dessert! And savory enough, and not too sweet, so a perfect accompaniment to my morning cup of tea. Overall, we were very pleased with this bundt! Now excuse me, I have to go shop for a new bundt pan!
Ingredients:
- 2 C all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour if you prefer
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 10 TBS unsalted butter, softened
- 1 C chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans, almonds or whichever nut suits you)
- 1/2 C moist raisins (this is plenty)
- 1 C sugar
- 2 eggs
- 6 medium apples, peeled, cored and grated
Preheat the oven to 350F/180C, grease a bundt pan and dust with flour. Tap out the excess flour and set aside. When it comes time for baking the bundt, don’t put it on a baking sheet so that the heat can circulate through the inner tube.
Now whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt together in a bowl.
In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or hand mixer and a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl periodically until the mixture is smooth, thick and pale. Add the eggs one at a time, beating each until fully incorporated.
On low-speed, mix in the apples until blended. Add the dry ingredients to the apple mixture, mixing with a spatula until they just disappear into the batter.
Fold in the nuts and raisins and then turn the batter out into the bundt pan, smoothing the top of the batter. Bake for 50-55 minutes or a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for at least five minutes before un-molding. Once it is completely cook, wrap in plastic and let it stand overnight at room temperature to ripen the flavors. Then ice or glaze the cake to your liking!