Spicy Apple Bundt Cake

On the 15th of November, the  world of sweets celebrates bundt cake day. In this post you can read more about this special day and the bundt pans.
This year, I  wanted to celebrate that day by baking an autumnal cake in a beautiful chiffon bundt pan. What's better is that this cake goes perfectly with the apple cider caramel that I told you about in my previous post. 

The choice of the ingredients was pretty easy: apples, spices and mulled cider, yet again!  It's true that sometimes I get obsessed with certain combinations, but once you try this cake you will understand why, especially if you like apple cakes!

And now let´s bundt!

The mold (Nordic ware chiffon pan) I used has a 10 cups capacity, and for it you need:

• 3 large eggs at room temperature
• 150 g soft butter
• 220 g brown sugar
• 200 g cooked apple (I chopped the apples into small dices, added the spices, a tablespoon of maple syrup and cooked the apple pieces until slightly tender and not falling apart)
• 220 g cake flour
• 10 g baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 50 ml of mulled cider, see note below (you can substitute the mulled cider with cream, but the taste will be slightly different)
• 100 ml cream
• 2 tsp of mixed spices (cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, star anise)
• 1 tsp brandy (optional)

First sift together the flour, baking powder, spices and salt. Set aside.

In your mixing bowl, beat the sugar and butter until creamy and well combined.

Add the eggs one at a time, making sure they combine well before adding the next egg. Add the cooked apples, the brandy and mix for just few seconds.

Turn off your mixer and with a spatula, fold  the flour mixture in 3 batches. Start with the first third then add the mulled cider, another third followed by the cream and finish with the last third.

Pour the mixture in your greased pan and bake  between 45 to 50 min in a preheated oven (175 C) or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave the cake it in the pan for 10 min then unmold and  let it cool completely on a cooling rack.

Once the cake has cooled completely, transfer it to a serving plate.

This cake is delicious as it is. It captures the essence of autumn in every bite-size piece!  You will love how comforting and scrumptious it is.

To please your palate even further, why not pair the cake with a decadent drizzle of apple cider caramel. The combination is heavenly, I kid you not!

Though it looks quite sophisticated, this recipe is actually easy to make and would be the ideal sweet finish to a hearty Thanksgiving, Christmas, or a special family gathering meal. Try it, it will not fail you.

Note: For the mulled cider all you need to do is add whatever spices you like (cinnamon, star anise, cloves, Jamaican pepper, juniper pepper, nutmeg and a strip of orange peel) to a litre of apple cider, and let it simmer for about 20 to 30 minutes!

Spicy Pumpkin Cookies, a Treat for Halloween

Pumpkins are now officially a culinary obsession of mine. Although nowadays it's readily available your long, it's mostly in autumn that I like to buy it every time I go food shopping. 

Once home, I roast pumpkins and divide them into small portions. I use what I need and freeze the rest for later. Roasting pumpkins really brings out their natural sweetness and imparts a delicate smoky flavor to their flesh. I puree the roasted pumpkin and use them in as much recipes as possible. 

This time, I wanted to use pumpkin in a sweet treat specially made for Halloween. The pumpkin flavored sugar cookies will be decorated and themed to fit for this special holiday, I love decorating cookies but I don't always have the time to do so, this occasion gave me enough motivation to get back to do what I really enjoy doing. 

Getting the cookie the perfect shape to be iced and decorated is really a tricky job, especially if you want to modify the ingredients of the basic sugar cookies, which I intended to do! 

I headed to the kitchen and played around with the basic recipe and luckiIy I got the texture and taste that I wanted. The addition of the pumpkin created a whole new flavor dimension to the cookies and even if you don't want to decorate them, trust me, you will enjoy their taste and I can guarantee that your home will be filled with an enchanting and festive aroma for the whole day!  

Let's get baking!

For the cookies you need:

• 440 g flour
• 160 to 180 g panela sugar (I used 160, 180 if you´re not decorating with royal icing)
• 6 tsps of cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp of ground cloves, 1/4 tsp ground star anise, 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
• 1/2 to 1 tsp of ground cinnamon (to your liking)
• dash of salt
• 180 g  of butter, room temperature
• 1 egg at room temperature (you need a small egg or 50 g of a larger one)
• 60 g roasted pumpkin purée

Start by sifting the flour, cocoa powder, spices and salt and set aside. 
With a paddle attachment (if you don´t have one use whisks) beat the butter for a minute, add the sugar and the pumpkin purée, beat for 2 or 3 min until well combined. Add the egg and beat again for just a couple of minutes.

Add the flour mixture, and mix just a little bit at a low speed and stop even if not all the flour is combined. Drop the dough over a clean working surface and gently knead until the dough comes together.

Form your well combined dough into a 2 cm (just over 3/4 of an inch) thick rectangle  and wrap it with plastic film or put in a ziplock bag and leave in the fridge for at least 4 hours or over night.

Cut your cookies using the shapes and molds you like and bake them for about 10 to 15 min in a preheated oven (180). The baking time will depend on the thickness and the size of the cookies! Keep an eye on them and bake them until the edge is slightly golden. 

If you want to decorate these cookies in a more elaborate way then follow the steps I explained in the chocolate cookies post I made for Easter!

For this occasion, I opted for a simpler decoration, I pipped the silhouettes with  royal icing and added black filigree on the edges for a dramatic finish. To give the iced cookies a vintage and darker look I used cocoa powder brushed gently over the surface of the iced cookies.  

Happy Halloween everybody!