bundt

spicy gingerbread bundt cake with caramelized white chocolate ganache #bundtbakers

When it comes to being a food blogger, there’s a lot of pressure to come up with “original” recipes.

Thing is, there ain’t much out there that ain’t been tried before. Odds are that any flavors you’re considering combining have probably already been combined before by someone else, somewhere else.

When Laura from Baking in Pyjamas chose “winter wonderland” as our #bundtbakers theme this month, my very first thought was of a deep, dark, super spicy gingerbread bundt cake. There is nothing in the world that says winter holidays to me more than the combination of warm spices and molasses.

The problem? Everybody and their uncle is posting gingerbread cake recipes right now (and have been every December since the advent of the food blog). As much as I wanted to bake some dark, dense, spicy, & chewy gingerbread for myself, I decided that I should probably try to come up with something a bit more unique.

Life is hard sometimes you guys.

After a bit more brainstorming, I remembered the caramelized white chocolate I’d read about on my friend Lindsay’s ice cream blog, If the Spoon Fits.

Now, before you start with the whole “white chocolate is gross/too sweet/boring/stupid/not chocolate” comments, hear me out. When you take the time to slowly caramelize good white chocolate in the oven with a sprinkle of flaky sea salt, it transforms into something completely new and exciting and magical. The sugars in the chocolate caramelize and the cocoa butter gets richer and deeper and almost butterscotch-y. While it still has the texture of white chocolate, the flavor is much closer to a rich and creamy salted caramel.

When Lindsay first posted about it I was a bit skeptical that white chocolate could really be THAT GOOD, but I made a mental note and filed it away for a rainy day. A winter wonderland themed bundt cake seemed like the perfect rainy day opportunity to bust it out.

I had faith in Lindsay that the flavor would be great, but I felt like I’d want a bit more texture and interest so I decided to add some nuts. Almonds, walnuts, or pecans would have been ideal choices for flavor and crunch, but I decided that roasted chestnuts would be sooooo much more winter wonderland-y.

Oddly enough, even though my Grandfather has two giant old chestnut trees in his yard, as best I can remember I’ve never actually eaten a chestnut and had no clue what they tasted like. I called my Grandmother to ask her about it, and she confirmed that even though they’re in the yard, she’d never attempted to eat or cook with them. I remember their spiky green outer shells littering the yard when I was a kid, but I think the squirrels always made away with most of the nuts inside. Maybe that’s why they never really made it into the house.

So, not knowing what to expect, I went to the store and picked up a jar of expensive fancy pants French chestnut puree, along with a pound of whole chestnuts that I wanted to try to oven roast.

Oh lord what a mess.

Did you know that roasted chestnuts can explode if you don’t score the shell in the right place?
I wish I were joking.
After oven roasting them according to Martha’s instructions, I noticed that one of my chestnuts hadn’t opened at the score line. A few minutes after it came out of the oven, I poked the unopened chestnut with a knife. I’m not really sure why I did it, but it was definitely a mistake.
There was a loud POP like the sound of a sealed soda bottle being run over by a car (Is that a sound everyone knows, or is that just because I live in Brooklyn?). Anyways, the two halves of the shell went flying across the kitchen in opposite directions, one landing on my dish rack and the other on the floor in front of the refrigerator. The chestnut meat itself practically vaporized into a fine, hot, sticky chestnut dust that sprayed all over my kitchen; sticking to the oven, the walls, the side of the fridge, the counters, cabinets, and floor. A bit later I walked past the mirror and found chestnut dust covering my beard and stuck to my cheeks and forehead. Yesterday I was in the kitchen and happened to glance up and notice there was chestnut dust all over the ceiling.

After the initial shock of the whole thing, I just stood there laughing like crazy for a good 10 minutes before I cleaned up the mess. Luckily there were a few whole chestnuts left that I could use, so I peeled one open and tasted it.

Sooooo….

Ummmm….

Can anyone tell me why people like chestnuts? I was expecting something, oh, I don’t know, nutty?
But no. This thing was bland and flavorless while also being oddly sweet, with a soft, pasty, almost bready texture rather than the satisfying nutty crunch I was anticipating.

I eventually decided that I must just be missing something because I’m not used to them, so I wanted to forge ahead. Since the roasted chestnuts wouldn’t have the crunch and texture I was hoping for, I decided to just go for flavor and mix the chestnut puree into the cake batter instead.

Ugh. You guys. There are entire songs devoted to chestnuts this time of year. I just don’t get it.

The chestnut puree made the cake rubbery, dense, slightly bitter, and strangely grey-ish.
FML.

A few days later I considered baking a new caramelized white chocolate cake with some crunchier, nuttier nuts, but ultimately my first cake was such a traumatic experience from start to finish that I couldn’t bring myself to try again.

After some soul searching, (Is it weird that my life is filled with so much bundt-related soul searching?) I decided to scrap the whole thing and go back to the gingerbread cake I’d wanted to make in the first place. Who cares if a bajillion other people have already made similar cakes? As long as I enjoy it and stand behind the recipe, why not?

Since I’d already gotten more white chocolate, and really was impressed with the caramel-y flavor, I decided to go ahead and use it to make a ganache glaze for the cake.

After that first cake, it felt SO DAMNED GOOD to have this one turn out so well.

Having grown up with traditional spicy German Christmas cookies like pfeffernusse and lebkucken, I like my gingerbread super dark and spicy so I use lots of molasses and plenty of spice. I even like to use a touch of ground black pepper for a bit more heat, and along with the dried ginger I like to stir some little chewy chunks of crystallized ginger into the batter right at the end.

The caramelized white chocolate ganache takes some time to make, but it adds a lovely sweet, salty, caramel-y touch that perfectly compliments the rich, deep flavors of the cake.

If you like gingerbread, especially dark, dense, spicy, chewy, old-world gingerbread; you’re going to flip for this cake. It’s unbelievable right out of the oven, but the best part is that it even improves with age so it can (and should!) be made a day or two ahead. After a few days it seems even more tender, moist, and flavorful than it did when I first sliced it for these photos.

Please be sure to scroll down past the recipe to see all the other winter wonderland themed bundts the other #bundtbakers came up with this month!

Spicy Gingerbread Bundt Cake with Caramelized White Chocolate Ganache

Servings: 12 to 16-ish
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2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 to 3 tablespoons ground ginger (depending on how spicy you like it)
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
1 cup molasses (not blackstrap)
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
3 large eggs
1/3 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a 10- to 12-cup bundt-style pan.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and spices. Set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk together the molasses and water and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter, oil, and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well and scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl after each addition.

Add the flour mixture in three additions alternately with the molasses water, starting and ending with the flour. Add the chopped crystallized ginger with the last addition of flour, and mix just until smooth. Do not over-mix.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smooth the top, and bake for 55 to 65 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool in the pan on a wire rack for at least 20 minutes, then turn the cake out onto the rack to cool completely. If desired, make the caramelized chocolate while the cake cools. Recipe below.

I recommend baking this cake a day or two ahead. It improves with age! Cake can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to three days.

*note: It is totally normal and okay if this cake sinks a little bit in the center.

Caramelized White Chocolate Ganache Glaze:
Adapted from David Lebovitz

8 oz good quality white chocolate (must have real cocoa butter)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1/4 cup heavy cream

Optional decorations: white nonpareils, white dragees, white sixlets

Turn the oven down to 250F

If the white chocolate is in a block or bar, chop it into coarse pieces. Spread the white chocolate in an even layer on a rimmed baking sheet and heat for ten minutes.

Remove it from the oven, add the oil, and spread it out with a clean, dry spatula.

Continue to cook for and additional 30-60 minutes, stirring and spreading every 10 minutes. At some points it may look lumpy and chalky, but keep stirring and it will smooth out and caramelize. Once the chocolate reaches a deep golden brown, remove from the oven, scrape into a bowl or large measuring cup, and whisk in the salt and heavy cream until completely smooth and free of lumps.

Once the cake is completely cool drizzle the still slightly warm ganache over the cake and, if desired, top with optional decorations before it cools and sets.

These wonderful wintery bundts are definitely putting me in the Holiday spirit this year! Thank you Laura for choosing such a perfect theme for the month of December!

#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on the BundtBakers home page.

Amaretto Winter Bundt Cake from Making Miracles
Candied Fruit Bundt Cake from I Love Bundt Cakes
Chile Hot Chocolate Mocha Bundt Cake from All That’s Left Are The Crumbs
Coconut Snowball Mini Bundts from Food Lust People Love
Cranberry Eggnog Bundt Cake from Sew You Think You Can Cook
Cream and Rum Bundt Cake from La Mejor Manera de Hacer
Holiday Gingerbread Bundt from Living the Gourmet
Orange Blossom Bundt Cake from Bizcocheando
Orange Cranberry Bundt Cake from Tartacadabra
Peppermint Pine Forest Bundt Cake from Baking in Pyjamas
Rainbow Christmas Wreath from A Day in the Life on the Farm
Spicy Gingerbread Bundt with Caramelized White Chocolate Ganache from Brooklyn Homemaker
Tropical Winter Wonderland Bundt Cake from Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice

roasted pear and walnut spice cake bundt #bundtbakers

Whoa. I just realized that I haven’t baked a bundt cake since April.

This has been one hell of a year, both personally with the Maxwell’s build out and opening, and for the country as a whole. This election cycle really has consumed me, chewed me up and spit me out, and just when I thought it would all finally be over, it seems like we’re in for even more struggle and strife.

While things may feel a little disheartening right now, life must go on, and getting back into the kitchen and revving up the ol’ stand mixer certainly helps me feel centered and whole again.

I’m so so thrilled that Lauren from Sew You Think You Can Cook chose pears as our inspiration for the #bundtbakers this month. Thank you so much Lauren! Not only do I absolutely love pears on their own, there’s also something especially cozy and satisfying about baking with fall fruit pear-ed (har har) with warm homey spices.

With Thanksgiving only a week away, a pear bundt cake is just what the doctor ordered.

I have a confession to make though.
I haven’t always liked pears.

My grandfather has always had several fruit and nut trees on his property, and when I was little I thought pears were absolutely disgusting. I don’t know if it was the grainy texture, or the thick sandy skin, or what, but to be perfectly honest I didn’t care for a lot of the bounty of grandpa’s garden.

I was truly a child of the 80’s, and a lot of my culinary influence during my formative years came from spending time in my grandmother’s kitchen. She is a product of her generation, and Grandma’s food philosophy came from the atomic-age desire for shiny, new, packaged convenience foods rather than the back-to-earth approach many of us prefer today. As a kid in Grandma’s kitchen, packaged food was celophane-wrapped, sterilized heaven to me, and I couldn’t get enough of it. Give me a box of doughnuts, a bag of chips, a can of soup, a bottle of soda, and a grilled cheese sandwich made with plastic-wrapped processed “cheese food”, bagged sliced white bread, and margarine from a tub.
Who wants to have to pick and wash fresh fruits and vegetables from outside with all the dirt and bees and bugs, when the fridge is stocked with Cool Whip and Velveeta that’s clean and delicious and ready to eat?

Not me.
That’s who.

I did like Grandpa’s strawberries and plums, but even the strawberries had to be scrubbed and sliced and covered in sugar before I deemed them edible.

Obviously my tastes have changed over the years, and as an adult I’ll take a ripe juicy pear, still warm from the sun, over a tub of chemically Cool Whip any day of the week.

As a kid, trips to my grandparents house filled me with excitement because I knew the cupboards were bursting with store-bought chips and cookies and doughnuts. These days I still get excited when I get to visit my grandparents, but now it’s because I know grandpa will load me up with sagging grocery bags filled with dirty bell peppers, lopsided butternut squash, fuzzy warm peaches, or sun-ripened tomatoes when I get ready to leave.

When I was planning my bundt for this month, I knew that I really wanted the pears to be the stars of the show. My first instinct was to chop or cube or grate them just like apples into a traditional spice cake for flavor and added moisture, but somehow that didn’t seem like it was “enough”. My pears deserved better than playing second fiddle to cinnamon.

Determined to leave the pears whole (or at least halved) inside the cake, I decided to poach them in a bourbon ginger syrup. They smelled like heaven in the poaching liquid and I couldn’t help myself from sneaking spoonfuls of batter from the pan before it went into the oven. I was congratulating myself on a job well done before the cake even started to rise, and I couldn’t wait to get it out of the oven and see the autumnal perfection I’d come up with.

Aaaaaaand…

It was an absolute disaster.

The pears soaked up too much moisture in the poaching liquid, releasing it back into the cake to create a jiggly bundt with the weirdest almost blubbery texture I’ve ever had the misfortune to put in my mouth. As the cake cooled it sagged and the cake separated from the pears and slumped into a wobbly mess on the plate.

So, back to the drawing board. I knew I’d need a thicker, denser batter, and I obviously needed to find a way to pull moisture out of the pears before baking them into the cake. With poaching out of the question, I decided to try dry roasting the pears so they’d be tender but slightly dried out before going into the batter. Thankfully, it worked out beautifully and I think the pears are almost as happy about it as I am.

You’ll want to use the smallest pears you can find for this recipe, because if they’re too big or tall they’ll take up too much room in the pan. They might cause the batter to run over in the oven, or could stick out the top of the cake and cause it to sit unevenly when plated. I also think that Bosc pears are the only variety firm and sturdy enough to stand up to being roasted, handled, and baked in this way without turning to mush or falling apart.

The bit of extra effort in roasting the pears and toasting the walnuts really pays off when you slice down into the cake to reveal a perfect cross-section of a whole pear (depending on where you slice).
And the flavor? Fuggitaboudit. Warm spices, tender roasted pears, crunchy toasted walnuts, buttery tender brown sugar spice cake, and a thick and tangy cream cheese glaze.
I mean. Come on.

This is basically THE perfect fall cake, and it would make an excellent addition to your Thanksgiving spread to boot. If you’re looking for even more fall inspiration and pear-y wonderfulness, make sure you scroll down past the recipe to see what the other #bundtbakers came up with this month!

Roasted Pear and Walnut Spice Cake

Servings: 8 to 12-ish
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4 to 5 small firm Bosc pears, depending on the size of your pan
1 1/4 cups chopped walnuts
2 1/4 cups all-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoons cardamom (optional)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup (16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar, packed
3 large eggs

Cream Cheese Glaze:
4 ounces (1/2 package) cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 to 4 tablespoons milk

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly butter and flour a 10 to 12 cup bundt pan, refrigerate.

Peel pears, slice in half, and scoop out seeds with a melon baller or spoon. Place cut side up on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. Flip and bake 15 minutes more. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.

Spread walnuts in an even layer on a small baking sheet and toast for 5 to 8 minutes, or until they smell toasty. Do not let them burn. Set aside to cool. Reserve 1/4 cup for topping the cake.

Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, & spices together in a bowl. Set aside. Mix vanilla into buttermilk and set aside.
In a the bowl of and electric mixer, beat together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for a minute or two and scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl between additions.
Alternate additions of flour and buttermilk, mixing on low just until combined, and scraping the bowl between each addition. Start and end with flour so there are 3 additions of flour and 2 of buttermilk. Stir in 1 cup walnuts until evenly distributed.

Pour about 3/4 of the batter into the prepared pan, and tap the pan on the counter to remove air bubbles. Push pear halves into the batter, top side facing down into the bottom of the pan, arranging them so the cut halves face each other as a whole pear. Arrange pears so they’re evenly spaced around the pan. Spread remaining batter over the top, leaving at least half an inch of room for the cake to rise so it doesn’t overflow in the oven. It’s okay if the pears stick out of the batter a bit, as the cake should rise around them. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Remove the cake from the oven, and cool in the pan for 30 minutes before turning it out onto a rack to cool completely.

While the cake cools, make the glaze.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the cream cheese until it’s fluffy and smooth. Add the powdered sugar, vanilla, and 4 tablespoons of milk and blend until there are no lumps. If necessary, add more milk, a tablespoon at a time, beating after each addition until the glaze reaches the desired drizzle-able consistency. It should be about the consistency of thick melted ice cream to drizzle correctly.

Place a tray under cake and cooling rack to catch any drips. Pour glaze over cake and let the glaze work its way down the side, tapping the tray on the counter if necessary. Top with toasted walnuts.

Well covered in an airtight container, this cake should keep at room temperature about 2 days, or longer in the fridge. Just make sure to serve it at room temperature if you refrigerate it.

The bundt bakers really outdid themselves this month, and all these perfect pear cakes have my mouth watering like crazy!

You can see all our of lovely Bundts by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about #BundtBakers, can be found on our home page.

Almond Pear Bread Pudding from Food Lust People Love
Fresh Pear Bundt Cake with Vanilla Glaze from The Queen of Scones
Honey and Walnut Pear Bundt Cake from Sew You Think You Can Cook
London Fog & Pear Bundt Cake from All That’s Left Are The Crumbs
Orange Pear Bundt Cake from Basic N Delicious
Pear and Date Bundt Cake with Caramel Mascarpone Sauce from kidsandchic
Pear and Hazelnut Bundt from Jane’s Adventures in Dinner
Pear and Port Bundt Cake from Palatable Pasttime
“Pear”fect Rum Raisin Cake from Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
Pear Pecan Coffee Bundt Cake from Patty’s Cake
Pear Spiced Bundt Cake from I Love Bundt Cakes
Pear Streusel Crunch Cake from Noshing with the Nolands
Pumpkin Pear Bundt Cake from Making Miracles
Roasted Pear & Walnut Spice Cake Bundt from Brooklyn Homemaker
Salted Caramel Pear Bundt Cake from Tartacadabra
Spiced Pear Bundt from A Day in the Life on the Farm

drømmekage (Danish dream cake) bundt cake #bundtbakers

Are you guys as ready for summer as I am?

Are you ready for sunny days and warm weather? Ready to feel the warmth of sunshine on your skin? Ready to walk outdoors in short sleeves and single layers of thin cotton clothing?

I’m not afraid to admit that I am. I am 100% ready. I’m also, officially, over this winter.

Up until this point I’ve been doing just fine. Really I have!
Here in the Northeast this winter has been totally mild and easily tolerated. At least it was until last week, when shady ol’ Mother Nature decided it would might great fun to give us a little taste of what we’ve been missing.

For three glorious days, temperatures were suddenly in the mid-70s during the day, with ample sunshine, warm breezes, and the smells of spring air. Record breaking warmth for this time of year. Easily deceived by Mother Nature’s dirty tricks, I started planning barbecues and garden parties.

Our false summer was fleeting though, and disappeared behind some rain clouds as suddenly as it arrived, leaving us to close the windows again and turn the heat back up.

Luckily, Christiane from Taking on Magazines chose “Tropical Vacation” as our theme for the bundt bakers this month. What better way to delude myself into thinking it’s warm and bright and wonderful outside when you and I both know that it isn’t?

If you’re as hungry (pun very much intended) as I am for some tropical distraction, please be absolutely certain that you scroll down past the recipe and see all the bright & tropical bundts that everyone came up with this month!

Oddly enough, I’ve never really been a huge fan of most tropical fruits. For whatever reason, I prefer my produce from more temperate climates. Maybe it’s because my family comes from sturdy cold-weather Bavarian German stock, maybe it’s because my grandfather spoiled me with all of his fruit trees and garden fresh berries, or maybe it’s just because I’m a creature of habit and prefer what I’m familiar with. Who knows?
Either way, given a choice between an apple or a mango, a pear or a papaya, a peach or a pineapple, 9 times out of 10 I’m going to choose the option that grows right here in the Northeast, not the one grown on some faraway island under the shade of a palm tree.

Coconut however, is the one exception to my aversion to tropical fruit. Ever since I was a child I’ve loved coconut, and I can remember countless fluffy white cakes covered in downy clouds of sweetened coconut flakes. I especially love coconut around Easter, when Grandma’s coconut cakes used to be made to look like cute fuzzy bunnies with licorice lips and whiskers, and candy coated eyeballs and noses.

It’s only fitting that I now have the chance to make a sensational coconut bundt cake with Easter only 10 days away.

A sensational bundt cake calls for a sensational bundt pan. Luckily Nordic Ware, the company that literally invented the bundt pan, just released a gorgeous new pan to celebrate their 70th anniversary. This elegant crown shaped pan is a gold plated show stopper and features curves in all the right places! They’re truly celebrating their anniversary in style.

Nordic Ware has been making exceptional cookware and bakeware right here in the US for 70 years now, and even after all this time they’re still a family owned company. The bundt pan is by far their most famous and most popular product, and no one makes bundt pans as well as they do. Their pans are sturdy, heavy duty, ultra-non-stick, and unbelievably durable.
I should know! I put those bundt pans through more than their fair share of abuse!
I know that I’ve said this before, but as a bundt baker and bundt lover, I can’t sing enough praises for Nordic Ware’s bundt pans.

I really wanted to come up with something special this month, so I was on a mission to come up with a recipe that would not only fit our tropical vacation theme, but that could also honor Nordic Ware’s Scandinavian heritage. It didn’t take me long to find a recipe for a traditional Danish cake called a Drømmekage or “Dream Cake”.

If you’re not familiar (I wasn’t), drømmekage consists of a tender vanilla cake that, after baking, is covered with a caramel and coconut topping and returned to the oven to brown up and caramelize. It certainly doesn’t get much dreamier than that!

The only problem was that drømmekage is usually made as a single layer sheet cake, with the topping added only at the very end of the baking process. Since the top of a bundt cake is actually at the bottom of the pan while it bakes, I knew that converting this cake into a bundt might be challenging. I was a man on a mission though, and I was determined to make it work. I just kept telling myself, “I can bundt that.”

At first I just tried making the recipe as originally written but baking the topping into the bottom of the pan. Unfortunately the topping didn’t hold up well and got sort of rubbery when baked along with the cake for the full time, and I found the vanilla cake to be a bit bland. Next I tried simply mixing the topping ingredients together instead of cooking them into a caramel first. I just added some of the cake batter to get it all to come together. This attempt was much improved but I thought it lacked the toasty caramel flavor I was hoping for. For my third (and final) attempt I decided to toast the coconut and brown the butter before mixing it all together. I also added some vanilla bean and coconut extract to un-bland-ify the interior cake.

Third time’s a charm as they say, and this cake seriously ended up being thebomb.com. Thankfully, it was worth all the effort and recipe testing!

The rich brown coconut part of this cake is dense and chewy on the outer edges with a buttery and almost creamy quality on the inside. It has an amazingly rich, toasty, nutty flavor from the browned butter and toasted coconut, and a wonderful caramel flavor from the dark brown sugar. The simple vanilla cake on the interior is tender and buttery and packed with warm homey vanilla flavor.

Getting the coconut and brown sugar mixture to work as a “topping” like it would in a traditional dream cake means that you have to carefully press the mixture against the walls of the pan and make sure to push it up the sides and center tube. This can be a bit of a pain but does make for an impressive presentation. If you want to make your life a little easier though, I think it would be simpler and just as delicious if you were to combine these two batters like a marble cake instead. I’ll leave that up to you.

If you can, I recommend you try to make this cake the day before you’d like to serve it. It was amazing on the first day but I found that the texture of the coconut part had become even more tender and wonderful by the second day.

Drømmekage (Danish Dream Cake) Bundt Cake

Servings: about 12
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adapted from Saveur

If possible, try making this cake one day before you plan to serve it. The cake benefits from a day’s rest.

Coconut “Topping”:
3 cups sweetened shredded coconut
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for pan
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

Cake:
1 1/4 cups sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped and pod discarded (or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla powder)
4 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon coconut extract (optional)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup whole milk
1/4 cup powdered sugar for dusting, optional

Heat the oven to 350.
Evenly brush a 10 to 12 cup non-stick bundt pan with softened butter. Be sure to get into every nook and cranny. Dust pan with flour and tap out excess. Place pan in freezer while you proceed with recipe.

Make the coconut “topping”:
Spread coconut in an even layer over a large baking sheet. Toast coconut for about 10 minutes, stirring once to promote even browning and prevent burning. Watch carefully, the coconut can go from toasty to burnt in under a minute.
Once cool enough to handle, crush up roughly half of the coconut with your hands.
In a medium saucepan, brown the butter (only first stick) over medium heat, stirring regularly. Watch carefully to avoid burning. Once the butter reaches a nutty golden color, immediately transfer to a heatproof bowl. If desired, strain out browned milk solids in the butter. (I did, but not entirely necessary)
Add brown sugar and toasted coconut and stir to combine. Set aside.

Make the cake:
In a the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the sugar and softened butter (remaining stick) on high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add scraped vanilla bean seeds (or paste or powder) and mix to combine. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating to incorporate after each addition and scraping the sides of the bowl between additions. Add vanilla and coconut extracts and beat to combine.
Whisk together flour and baking powder in a small bowl.
Alternate additions of flour and milk, beginning and ending with flour, scraping sides of bowl after each addition. Mix just to combine after each addition. Do not over-mix.

Measure out about 2 cups of the batter and transfer to the bowl with the (cooled) browned butter and coconut mixture. Fold the batter in until combined.

If you want the coconut mixture on the outside and top of the cake, transfer it to the bundt pan and press the mixture against the sides of the pan, pushing it almost all the way up the outer sides and center cone of the pan. Next pour the remaining cake batter into the center of the coconut side walls.
If you’d prefer a marbled effect, pour cake batter into pan first, dot the top of the batter with several large spoonfuls of coconut mixture, and gently swirl the two batters together with a dull knife or icing spatula.

After adding batter to pan, gently tap the pan on the counter to remove air bubbles.
If using an intricately designed pan, you may want to place it on a cookie sheet to keep it level in the oven. Transfer to the center of the oven and bake just until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, about 50 to 60 minutes.

Cool for 15 to 20 minutes on a wire rack before inverting the cake onto the rack to remove the pan. Cool for at least 30 minutes more before dusting with powdered sugar. Store in under a cake dome, in an airtight container or tightly wrapped in plastic wrap to prevent the cake from drying out. If well stored, the cake should keep for several days at room temperature.

There are so many mouthwatering bundts this month you can’t help but feel tropical. Regardless of what’s happening outside, you’re gonna need sunglasses to get through these amazing links!

Banana Coconut Pineapple Bundt by Food Lust People Love
Banana Pineapple Mini Bundt Cakes by I Love Bundt Cakes
Banana Rum Cake by Jane’s Adventures in Dinner
Bounty Bundt Cake by Baking in Pyjamas
Bundt Cake Tropical by La mejor manera de hacer …
Chocolate Coconut Tres Leche Bundt Cake by The Whisking Bowl
Drømmekage (Danish Dream Cake) Bundt Cake by Brooklyn Homemaker
Golden Tropical Coconut Bundt Cake by Faith, Hope, Love & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
Key Lime Bundt Cake by Taking On Magazines
Lava Flow Bundt Cake by All That’s Left Are The Crumbs
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walnut schnecken bundt cake #bundtbakers

Another day, another bundt. That’s what I always say.

Who am I kidding? I’ve never actually said that.

It does sometimes feel that way though, and this will be the 20th bundt cake I’ve baked and photographed and eaten since I started Brooklyn Homemaker.
Having joined a bundt baking blogging group has certainly kept my oven warm and my belly full!

Over the months (or is it years already?), I’ve done my best to keep things interesting and avoid bundt monotony. The creative themes the bundt bakers come up with have always provided me with fun and interesting challenges month after month.

Every once in a while though, you really need to do something you’ve never done before, something totally different and unique, to give yourself an inspirational kick in the pants.

This month’s theme, chosen by Lauren of Sew you Think you Can Cook, is cinnamon. Warm, sweet, homey cinnamon! Who doesn’t love cinnamon, especially during the dark and dreary days of winter? Thanks Lauren!

I’ve been looking forward to baking this month’s bundt for a while now, but when it came to decide what to actually put in the oven, I was stumped! The problem was that every idea I came up with just didn’t feel very exciting to me. I was certain that they’d all be totally delicious, but I couldn’t think of anything I haven’t seen before. There’s something to be said for simplicity and tradition, and there’s nothing better than a buttermilk spice cake in my book, but I really wanted to do something original this month.

walnut schnecken bundt cake | German cinnamon roll cake | Brooklyn Homemaker

After much hemming and hawing I decided to consult one of the new (old) cookbooks Russell gave me for Christmas. With my fingers crossed I reached for the United Sates Regional Cook Book by Edith Berolzheimer and hoped a recipe from 1939 would catch my eye. The contents are broken up into 11 culinary regions of the US, ranging from New England to Creole cooking, and there’s even a special chapter on “Cosmopolitan American” cooking.

One thing that really struck me was that there are three separate chapters on culinary regions labeled “Dutch”. I’d heard of the Pennsylvania Dutch before, but the other two groups were unfamiliar to me. Another odd thing was that one of the regions, the Michigan Dutch, featured recipes from Holland, while the other two chapters featured German recipes.

Did you know that the name “Pennsylvania Dutch” actually has nothing to do with Holland or the Netherlands? In the U.S., these groups are called “Dutch” because their American neighbors misunderstood “Deutschland”, the German name for Germany, and mistakenly thought the people settling these regions were Dutch rather than German. The name stuck and they’ve been called the Pennsylvania Dutch ever since. I was aware that there was a large German population in Wisconsin too, but I had no idea that they were also called the “Wisconsin Dutch” in the same way as the group in Pennsylvania.

After flipping through the book I also noticed that each of the German “Dutch” section had their own separate recipes for “Schnecken”. If you’re not familiar, schnecken is basically a German version of a sticky bun or cinnamon roll. The word schnecken means “snail” in German, and the pastry’s name is inspired by the swirled pattern of a snail’s shell.

The strange thing to me was how different each recipe was from one another. The Pennsylvania Dutch version seemed pretty straight forward and similar to other cinnamon roll recipes, but the Wisconsin Dutch version was made with a much richer dough and was baked in a loaf pan rather than a traditional round or rectangular cake pan. The Wisconsin recipe also had nuts, brown sugar, and butter added to the bottom of the pan, so that when the schnecken is turned out you’d have a pull-apart loaf topped with it’s own drippy buttery sauce.

I’ve never seen cinnamon rolls baked this way but it seems rather similar to monkey bread in my mind. I figured that if this recipe could be baked in a loaf, why couldn’t it be baked in a bundt pan? A round loaf of pull-apart cinnamon rolls, dripping with their own buttery brown sugar sauce. What could be better than that?
The Wisconsin version didn’t actually call for cinnamon, but the Pennsylvania recipe did so I just went for it. I also swapped walnuts for the pecans and almonds called for in the original recipe. I’ve been on a bit of a walnut kick lately and I absolutely love their bitter earthiness when paired with rich sweet recipes like this one.

The resulting cake is super fun to eat as you just pull each roll off as you go, no knife required. It’s rich and buttery and dripping with with butter and brown sugar. The cinnamon adds a lovely homey warmth and the walnuts provide an earthy bitterness that compliments perfectly with the sweetness of the sauce and richness of the pastry. I brought the cake to work with me for a staff meeting and it was absolutely devoured! This cake should probably keep for a few days, but to be honest I wouldn’t know! It’s definitely best eaten warm.

In the name of full disclosure, this recipe is over 75 years old and there are a few things I would do a little differently if I had it to do over again. Other than the addition of cinnamon and substitution of walnuts, I wanted to follow the original recipe to a T. While it was absolutely delicious, I actually found it to be too rich and heavy. (Who knew that was even possible?)
This is a yeast raised recipe, but to my surprise it didn’t call for any water or even milk, only heavy cream, egg yolks, and lots of butter. Lots and lots of butter. The resulting dough is extremely rich, and when eaten cold it had a slight greasiness. I also think that it’d be better baked at a slightly lower temperature as it seemed slightly overcooked, with an almost fried feeling, on the outermost edges.

In the recipe below I’ve changed it from cream to milk and lowered the temperature from 375 to 350. This still will make an undoubtably rich and decadent cake and I’m fully confident that you won’t miss all that heavy cream. I did make notes if you want to make this in it’s original 1939 form, but I’m completely rewriting the recipe instructions to make them easier to understand.

Walnut Schnecken Bundt Cake

Servings: about 12 to 16
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adapted from The United States Regional Cook Book, 1939

Pastry:
1 packet of active dry yeast *see note
1 cup lukewarm milk **see note
1 cup butter, softened
5 egg yolks
3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt

Filling:
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon (optional, not called for originally)
1 cup walnuts, chopped (original recipe called for almonds)

Topping:
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup walnuts (original recipe called for pecans)
1 cup packed brown sugar

Whisk yeast into lukewarm (not hot) milk. In the bowl of an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, mix the softened butter and egg yolks until well combined. Mix in milk, salt, and flour. Switch to a dough hook and mix until the dough comes together and leaves the sides of the bowl. Cover with a damp towel and let rise for an hour to an hour and a half, or until doubled in size. You can also cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

On a lightly floured board, roll the dough out into a rectangle. Mine was about 18″x12″, but the original recipe just said to roll it “thin”. Sprinkle evenly with sugar, chopped walnuts, and cinnamon. Roll up and slice into 12 to 16 even slices using a sharp serrated knife with a gentle sawing motion.

Pour melted butter into the bottom of a 10 to 12 cup bundt pan, reserving 2 tablespoons for later use. Tilt the pan to coat the sides in melted butter, but let most of it remain in the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle nuts in an even layer, and top with brown sugar in another even layer. Arrange rolls, at a slight angle, evenly around the pan atop the nuts and sugar. Brush with remaining butter. Cover with a damp towel and let rise for an hour to an hour and a half, or until doubled in size. Preheat oven to 350.

Bake until golden brown on top and a toothpick comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Turn out onto a serving plate or cake stand immediately. Do not leave in the pan or the sauce will stick. Serve warm.

*note: The original recipe called for cake yeast, but I couldn’t find it. Dry yeast worked out just fine.
**note: The original recipe called for heavy cream, but I found that it made the recipe too heavy and rich, with a greasy feeling. Milk will lighten it up a bit but the butter and egg yolks will ensure it’s still plenty rich.