Shiny New Thing

I’ve not had a good week. Well, some bits have been fantastic; my birthday was spent with friends, I felt loved and I had lots of fun – along with a fair amount of gin. I’ve been to the cinema several times; seen good films, bad films, barely watched one film at all because it was too scary and had rather a lot of damn fine popcorn. I have all but finished my Christmas shopping, eaten and baked cakes, drunk good wine and tasted Marmite Truffles for the first (but not the last) time. When I write it out like that it seems wrong to sum up the past seven days as poor, but the things that have gone wrong, whilst not taking away from all the lovely things I’ve done and shared, still make for a sum total of a pretty bad week.

So I shopped.

And I bought a shiny, new, lovely thing that I have been resisting for so long.

Todays inaugural baking session took place pre-dawn once again and I just can’t imagine how I’ve managed without (a bit like when I finally capitulated and ordered Sky+). I’m not one for the personification of inanimate objects but this may need to have a name as I can see a meaningful relationship developing (not the type to feature on a Channel Five documentary you understand).

To pair with the most American of kitchen equipment I went with the most American of cakes and baked a Pumpkin Spice Bundt Cake with Buttermilk Icing from Epicurious, found via the recent Bundt Fest over at the Food Librarian. She did a recent round up of all the Bundts baked on National Bundt Day and my contribution features. I reduced the sugar slightly, 1 1/4 cups of caster sugar equals about 280g but I used 250g, I read somewhere recently that a lot of US recipes can cope with less sugar so I’ll be giving it a try. This also had a sugar and buttermilk glaze which added an great sweet and sour element.

I really enjoyed the finished cake, quite simple in terms of taste but unusual to a palate not raised on the taste of pumpkin. There is a comment section on the Epicurious site and there are plenty of hints and tips about adjusting the spices and ways to get a better glaze. The initial glaze on mine went translucent, but I added more once the cake was cold.

It Must Be Sunday

I know I named this blog Spatulas at Dawn because of my early starts and love of filling the small hours with the smell of baking, but I really think that a 4 am start in November is taking things a little too far. Dawn was still several hours away when sat with coffee and recipe books I tried to decide which cake to bake in honour of National Bundt Day which is celebrated on the 15th November in the US.

I love my Bundt cake tin (and I’m hoping that Father Christmas might be able to fit another in my stocking this year – are you reading this Ces?) and rarely need an excuse to use it. As I mentioned the other day Mary, The Food Librarian, set herself the challenge of baking a bundt cake every day for the month leading up to National Bundt Day and I had a tin of pumpkin puree (thank you Waitrose) set aside for the day itself. After all, what could be a more fitting ingredient for this most American of bakeware than pumpkin? I already had my eye on a recipe for a Pumpkin and Chocolate bundt from the list on The Food Librarian’s site and my newest of books Cake Keeper Cakes (as recommended by Nicole at Baking Bites) had an almost identical one for a loaf cake. The average 9″ by 5″ loaf tin recipe can be doubled to fill a bundt so that’s what I did – see below. The original recipe called for milk but I used buttermilk and I also reduced the sugar slightly. Apologies for the mixture of measurments in US cups and metric, with some ingredients it’s easier to measure out in the original cups so I didn’t bother weighing to get the equivalent measure, sorry if that’s irritating, but it was early!

The resulting cake is so moist from the pumpkin and moorish with the differing textures I’m not sure how to do it justice here and hope that you give it a try soon.

Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake

adapted from Cake Keeper Cakes by Lauren Chatman

• 300g plain flour
• 2 tsp bicarb
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• generous pinch of nutmeg
• 225g unsalted butter
• 200g caster sugar
• 6 large eggs
• one 15oz can of unsweetened pumpkin puree
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup buttermilk
• 2 cups chocolate chips (I used a mixture of milk chocolate chips and chopped 70% Green and Blacks)
• 2 cups of chopped walnuts

• Preheat oven to 180C, grease your bundt tin and dust with flour
• Mix flour, spices, bicarb, baking powder and salt
• Beat sugar and butter until fluffy then add eggs one at a time, scraping the side of the bowl as needed
• Stir in pumpkin and vanilla then the buttermilk
• Add the flour in three batches, scraping the side of the bowl and then finally stir in the chocolate and walnuts
• Pour batter into the bundt tin of your choice and bake for 55 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean, cool in tin for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wore rack. Allow to cool completely before attempting to cut

Should your bundt be reluctant to release itself from the tin (as mine was today as I forgot the all important ‘dust with flour’ step) pop the tin back into the oven for a few minutes to help release it (you may also require the help of several implements to aid the process, I used a knife, a rolling pin, a plastic spatula and a bit of brute force)