A Trio of Bundts

(Note: Sweet Melissa Sundays will be posted later on this evening)

It's National Bundt Day! One of the very cool things about reading food blogs is that you become aware of celebrations that you might otherwise miss. Did you know that there is a National S'mores Day? Yup, it's August 10th. Angel Food Cake Day? It's in October. Eggs Benedict Day is in April. All of these fun little celebrations exist, and leave it to food bloggers to know about them. Mary, also known as the Food Librarian, has spent the last 30 days getting ready for National Bundt Day. She likes Big Bundts, and the proof is in her 30 successive days of bundt cake posts on her blog. It makes me tired just thinking about it! If you've read my blog for any time at all, you know I'm in school. Hopefully it follows that I have a special place in my heart for libraries and librarians. The librarians at Georgetown are so incredibly helpful and insightful and my life would be much more difficult without them. So, given my combined love of books and food, it should come as no surprise that I'm a big fan of the Food Librarian blog.

I also happen to like bundt cakes. I'm a cake girl, I scrape off icing, and bundt cakes have a very high cake to frosting/glaze ratio. I also happen to be inordinately fond of kitchen schwag, and the lovely folks at Nordic Ware have made sure that there are numerous shapes and sizes of bundt pans for me to ogle. I have so many on my wish list, but surprisingly enough, the one I want the most is a traditional bundt pan. You see, I have this very pretty fleur de lis bundt pan, and I love it, but it's much deeper and taller than a traditional bundt, which means that baking times are inevitably wonky. I love it, and I'll never get rid of it, but I long for a traditional bundt pan. That will have to wait, though, until I have a place to put said bundt pan. In the meantime, I'll just look.

On to the bundts! First in the trio of bundts is the lovely Sour Cream Chocolate Bundt Cake from Cook's Illustrated. It might not look like much, but this bundt is moist, chocolaty, and delicious. I thought about drizzling it with ganache, but as I mentioned, I'm strictly here for the cake. I made a full size bundt cake just for me, and I wanted just plain chocolate cake. I've heard that Cook's Illustrated is very particular about their recipes being reprinted, so I'm not going to reprint it here. I will, however, share a link to the recipe that I found in a Google search. Like nearly all CI recipes this cake requires several steps, and I promise you'll end up with a sink full of dirty dishes (it makes me twitch just thinking about it!). BUT, it's worth it. This is a very delicious chocolate bundt cake.

Next up, Coconut Bundt Cake with Powdered Sugar Glaze. When you're a singleton in a kitchen and you like to bake, you're always plotting an escape route for your baked goods. The goal is to have the baked goods leave the house before they can do any damage to your waistline, and that's not always easy. Any time I start baking, I usually have a victim, er, recipient, in mind. When Mary started posting all of these bundt cakes I started pondering how well they would ship. My friends in D.C. get treats all of the time, but my friends and family in other parts of the country have to wait until I'm around to have some goodies. My grandmother's (MawMaw) birthday was November 12th, and I mailed her this coconut bundt cake. Her favorite birthday cake is an Italian cream cake, with carrot cake running a close second. I ruled out a carrot bundt cake because I didn't think it would be sturdy enough to ship. All of the coconut involved in Italian cream cake made me choose this coconut cake to send to MawMaw to celebrate. I didn't get a chance to taste this cake, but it smelled absolutely fantastic.

Last, but certainly not least, is this Autumn Spice Bundt Cake from Chrysta Wilson. I decided to make this cake on a whim. The idea of an "autumn" bundt was very appealing to me, and I thought this would be a nice cake to share, so I made it in my mini bundt pans. I didn't expect much from this cake -- it seems to be a vanilla poundcake with cinnamon and nutmeg added -- but it's very tasty. The cake itself is very moist, and it has an almost caramel flavor to it. I added a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice in place of the 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg to amp up the "autumn" flavors a bit. The glaze is made up of powdered sugar, milk, and pumpkin pie spice. This was a tasty little bundt!


While Mary's "I Like Big Bundts" celebration concludes today, I know that I still have many more bundts that I'd like to make. I've definitely been inspired to make more bundt cakes around here, and now that I know many of them ship well, many bundt possibilities have opened up for me. With that in mind, I thought I'd share some of the bundts that are on my "To Make Soon" list.

Blueberry-Lemon Bundt from Martha Stewart. I actually tried to make this tonight and it was an EPIC.FAIL. It's actually a milestone: the first time a bundt has ever not come out of the pan for me. I always wondered what the big deal was, and now I know. It tastes really, really good though, so I'm going to try to make this one again soon.

Blood Orange Bundt Cake from My Husband Cooks. I'd actually like to make this as it is, but I'd like to tweak the recipe and make a pink grapefruit bundt cake, too.

Meyer Lemon Cranberry Bundt Cake from Food Network. I adore cranberries, and this cake has a cranberry tunnel -- sign me up. I might try to change the recipe to use oranges rather than Meyer lemons. Meyer lemons are nearly impossible to get here.

Pumpkin Spice Bundt Cake from Gourmet Magazine (sniff, sniff. I miss Gourmet).

Double-Ginger Sour Cream Bundt Cake from Bon Appetit. I've wanted to make this cake since I saw it in the magazine this past spring. It looks utterly delicious.