With a Little Help from my Friends

Baking is a wonderfully collaborative business.  I seldom leave recipes exactly the way I read them.  Once I’ve tried them, I play around with ingredients and measurements to make them exactly the way I like.  Or, if I’m feeling particularly unselfish, exactly the way my family likes.

Take this recipe.  When I first read the Dorie Greenspan recipe for Double Apple Bundt Cake, I wasn’t interested.  Yes, all of her recipes are wonderful.  But I’m not really a cake person.  And I don’t think I’ve ever baked a bundt cake.

But then I saw Valerie’s blog.  Rather than baking one large cake, she made mini bundts.  I love the idea of individual serving size desserts, and not just because they’re so cute.  They’re ideal if you have a portion control problem; if you can’t leave a dessert alone until it has been eaten; if a dessert sitting in your kitchen sings out to you like the sirens to Odysseus until you have finished the whole thing.  And by “you”, I actually mean “me”.

So mini bundts it was.  Mine were really mini, almost cupcake size, and this recipe made twelve.  If you check out Valerie's results, she got six medium-size bundts.

Then I searched for a perfect way to top off these little cakes, longing for something brown sugary and irresistible.  And I found this wonderful icing recipe that Liz used on her full-size bundt.

If you want to personalize this cake, add the raisins and pecans that I left out (unselfishly baking them the way my family likes them).  And if you make this recipe, let me know what worked for you.  Maybe next time I'll give your variation a try!

Double Apple Mini-Bundt cakes
(adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my Home to Yours)


1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground ginger

pinch of salt

5 Tbsp butter, at room temperature

3/4 cups sugar

1 large egg

1/2 cup store-bought apple butter

1 medium apple, peeled, cored and grated

Centre a rack in the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter and flour mini bundt pan.

Whisk together the dry ingredients, flour through salt.

Beat the butter and sugar on medium speed for 3 minutes or until the mixture is smooth, thick and pale.  Add the egg and beat well.  Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in the apple butter.  Don’t worry if it curdles the batter.  Still on low, add the grated apple and mix to completely blend.  Stir in the dry ingredients.  Turn the mixture into mini bundt pan and smooth the top of the batter with the spatula.

Bake for 15 – 18 minutes.  Transfer the mini bundts to a rack to cool for 5 minutes before unmolding and frosting.  Cool completely before serving.

Brown Sugar Frosting

5 Tbsp butter

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

3 Tbsp cream

1 1/2 cups icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp maple syrup

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Stir in the brown sugar and cook, stirring, until the sugar melts.  Stir in the cream, and bring the mixture to a boil.  Remove from heat and pour into a mixing bowl to cool for 10 minutes.  

After 10 minutes, stir in the icing sugar, vanilla and maple syrup.  Beat well.  If the mixture appears too thin, add more icing sugar; if it’s too thick, add a spoonful of hot water.  Be aware that the icing sets up quickly; pour over the cake while it’s still warm.  (Because it starts setting soon after being poured, one option is to put it in a large Ziploc bag and cut off a corner.  Squeeze icing through the hole to decorate.)

You’ll probably only need half a batch of this frosting as I had quite a lot of leftovers with mine.  Oh, well.