Apple Cider Bundt Cake

Hello again! I'm back! Really and truly. I'm back to blogging and I'm crazy excited about it. My "few weeks" of time off turned into a few months, and even though my vacation extended much longer than I had anticipated, I regret none of it. Taking some time off for myself, to sleep in on weekends, set my camera down, step away from all the pressure I was putting on myself was the best decision I could have made. I had a chance to enjoy my summer (I went to the beach! I completed two Spartan Races!! I went to Sicily!!!) and recharge my batteries. It only took a few weeks for me to realize that I really did miss this working on this space that I had created for myself.  And even though it took me a few months to feel like I was ready to get back into blogging, now that I have, all I can say is that it feels awesome.  I’m still going to work on making my blogging feel as natural as possible, so I don’t see myself getting back to the regimented schedule I forced on myself before.  While I don’t know how often I'll actually end up posting, all I know that I’m going to make sure I have a good time working on each and every post.  Because this is supposed to be my happy place, right? 

Anyway. Now that the formalities are over and we’re back in action, let’s talk cake. Because really, that’s what we’re all here for. 

This cake is the result of a failed attempt at apple picking. I’ve wanted to go apple picking ever since I learned such a thing existed, but for one reason over another, fall came and went every year and I never made it to an orchard. Last weekend was different though. My parents, sister, and I packed some snacks, got in the car, and drove all the way to the North Fork. We were ready. We made it to the orchard, and the parking lot was full of cars and people of all ages.  As we walked closer to the apple-studded trees, we saw a sign propped up against the fence that read “CLOSED.” We assumed we had just gotten to the orchard too early and that we’d be able to start picking our bushels of apples in a few minutes—but we were wrong. It turns out that the picking season had ended the weekend before, and the few apples that remained on the trees were reserved for picking during the week, so we made the best of the situation.  We drank some cider and explored the small neighboring farms, and I bought an apple pie (a really, really delicious pie) and a few jars of fruit preserves. It was fun but bittersweet nevertheless—after all, we drove almost two hours to get to the orchard, and left with zero freshly picked apples. 

Aside from getting an obvious lesson for next year (call BEFORE leaving to drive to the orchard), we got to pick up a gallon of some incredible spiced cider and enjoy a few cider donuts, still hot from the fryer.  I had been planning on baking up some kind of delicious apple-filled quick bread (perhaps swirled with salted caramel??) as my welcome-back post, but given that all I had was some cider, my plans had to change. I still wanted to go in the direction of a simple cake, because this is me we’re talking about and there’s nothing I love more. When I came across this recipe for an apple cider cake covered in cinnamon sugar, I was sold. I didn’t need to think twice about the recipe because it essentially makes a giant cider donut, and who needs to think twice about that?

The recipe starts off by boiling a roughly chopped apple (a supermarket Granny Smith, in my case) in spiced cider. Once the apple is soft and the cider has reduced, it all gets pureed until smooth. This, along with warming spices like cinnamon and cloves, are what give this cake its quintessential fall flavor. After the apple puree is made, the recipe is straightforward. Dry ingredients are whisked, then added to creamed butter and sugar, along with the apple puree and milk. A 45-minute trip in the oven and a brushing of melted butter later, the entire cake is sprinkled with cinnamon-scented sugar. At this point, you just have to resist giant cake donut sitting in your kitchen making it smell all kinds of delicious. Once it’s cooled completely, simply slice into it and enjoy. The wait will be worth it! 

Apple Cider Bundt Cake
recipe adapted slightly from Serious Eats

Ingredients

For the Cake

1 1/2 cups spiced apple cider
1 large Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup vegetable oil

For the Topping

6 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

Directions

Add the cider and chopped apple to a medium saucepan set over medium-high heat and bring the cider to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until half of the cider has been absorbed and the apples can be smashed easily with a fork, about 15 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat, and allow to cool for 5 minutes.  Pour the mixture into a food processor or blender and blend until pureed and smooth.  Measure out 1 cup of the cider mixture and add to a large measuring cup, along with the milk and vanilla extract. Stir with a fork to combine.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and position a rack in the middle of the oven. Grease a 10-cup Bundt pan with non-stick spray  and dust all over with flour, tapping out the excess.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves.

In the bowl of standard electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add in the oil, and beat to combine, about 1 minute.

Lower the mixer speed to low, and add the flour mixture in three batches, alternating with the cider-milk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix only until incorporated and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.  After the last addition, increase the speed to medium and beat for about 20 seconds to fully combine.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the cake until the top is golden brown and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Transfer the cake to cooling rack set over a baking sheet and let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert directly onto the cooling rack.

While the cake is still warm, combine the granulated sugar and cinnamon to make the topping. Brush the warm cake with melted butter and sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar, using your fingers to rub it onto the sides.

Let the cake cool completely, about 1 hour, before slicing. Enjoy!

Makes 1 Bundt cake

Spiced Pumpkin Rugelach

Rugelach are one of those little cookies that I've always thought I knew how to make (as evidenced here).  I mean, these looked like rugelach and tasted like rugelach, so I assumed that the little crescents that I was pulling out from my oven were in fact, rugelach.  I liked how they tasted, and I thought I could turn the page on rugelach. One more cookie that I had nailed, and it was on to the next.

While I may have always thought that I knew what I was doing when it came to rugelach, my mom always begged to differ.  She said they tasted fine, but were always too big. 

"They're supposed to be just a little bite!" she'd always say. 

I obviously thought I knew better, so I ignored her comments.  Every single time I made a batch of rugelach, she would say the same thing, and I would always brush her input aside, because I knew what I was doing.  In reality though, I didn't.

It wasn't until I got a box of rugelach in last year's Food Blogger Cookie Swap that I realized my mom was right. The rugelach I received were incredible.  They were flaky and buttery, tender and rich, but most importantly, they were tiny.  It took two small bites two eat each cookie, and it was a hard truth to accept.  I was wrong, and my mom was right (this seems like it always happens to me...).

Pumpkin and Maple Bundt Cake

Alright guys, ready for some crazy news?  Today, I'm posting a recipe for a pumpkin bundt cake.  Sure, that doesn't really sound like anything spectacular, as the Internet is full of all kinds of recipes for pumpkin Bundt cakes, but what is pretty spectacular is just how excited I am to be sharing this recipe with you guys.  I think this is the most excited I've ever been about sharing a pumpkin treat, and in fact, this is probably the most excited I've ever been about sharing a cake recipe in general.  Ok, I've definitely been more excited about sharing the Chocolate Stout Cake, the Pink Ombre Surprise Cake, and the Dark Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cake, but the fact that a pumpkin cake is right below my top 3 favorite cakes is a very big deal.  I made a pumpkin cake, and I actually loved it.  I loved this cake so much, that I knew immediately that I wanted to make it again for Thanksgiving.  I never thought I would see the day where I'd be this excited about anything with pumpkin, but I've somehow managed to completely surprise myself.   

Since my sister has been away at school, I've taken over all the decision making in terms of what I choose to bake and post.  Every now and then I'll ask her for an opinion, but I no longer have to listen to her complain when I decide to make something she's not particularly crazy about (aka, fudgey brownies and anything flavored with coconut).  When I got the idea that I wanted to make a pumpkin Bundt cake, I shared my decision with my sister, who had nothing to say but, "UGH!  Why am I not at home right now!?"  My sister is completely pumpkin-obsessed, and while it's too bad she wasn't at home to try out how great this cake came out, at least she'll be home for Thanksgiving and will get to try it then. I knew I wanted to make some kind of glaze to brush over the cake, and my sister suggested making an icing to drizzle over the cake to finish it off.  At first, I was a bit nervous about incorporating both a glaze and an icing, as I thought it would end up giving the cake an overly sweet taste with each bite, but they ended up working perfectly, as the cake itself didn't end up being too sweet on its own. 

Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Vanilla-Bourbon Sauce

It's officially almost Thanksgiving!!!! I don't think I can begin to explain to you how much I love Thanksgiving.  It's one of my favorite holidays during the year (second only to Christmas...I'll always be a Christmas kind of girl).  Thanksgiving dinner is something I look forward to all year long, starting as early as the second I wake up from my first food coma of Thanksgiving day.  Normally, I eat pretty healthy and am good about managing my portions and what I eat throughout the day, but all that good-eating philosophy I typically live by gets thrown out the window on Thanksgiving.  I mean think about it.  This is the one day of the year where eating until you fall into a food coma is not only expected, but almost encouraged.  Ok, I'm kidding about falling into a food coma being encouraged, but regardless, it is the only day of the year where passing out on the living room couch with your belt undone is somewhat acceptable. 

Please tell me I'm not the only one that eats until I pass out on the couch as soon as I'm finished.  If I am, then please, no judging.  If it helps, I plan on going extra hard with my Insanity workout before Thanksgiving dinner starts.  Gotta keep a sense of balance!

Thanksgiving is not only about the food.  There's other traditions too!  One unknown fact about me that's not really a "tradition," but nevertheless happens consistently, is actually highly annoying.  Ever since I was little, I've somehow always (literally ALWAYS) managed to wake up on Thanksgiving feeling completely under the weather, and just plain old sick.  I have no idea why this happens.  I rarely get sick, but somehow, like clockwork, Thanksgiving morning comes, and I wake up feeling like the only thing that will get me out of this awful funk I'm in is a giant plate of stuffing (this tends to help a lot).  This year, however, is the year that I think this will all change.  I haven't started feeling weird yet, so I think this will be the first Thanksgiving in a long time where I'm actually going to be feeling 100% good (crossing my fingers that I didn't just jinx myself).  

Another Thanksgiving tradition I have, that's actually a tradition, is waking up early to watch March of the Wooden soldiers on Thanksgiving morning.  Yup, I'm the person that totally skips over the Macy's Thanksgiving parade, in favor of watching a really old movie that I've seen about 15 times by now.   I'm weird, I know.  It's ok though.  

Classic Pumpkin Pie

Alright.  It's time to be totally honest with you guys.  I really dislike pumpkin pie.  I'm being serious.  I have never ever liked it, and I don't think I ever will, although that could maybe change, eventually.  My dislike of pumpkin things in general has changed a lot in the past year, and ever singe I baked up a batch of pumpkin cinnamon rolls, and a batch of miniature pumpkin doughnut muffins, my dislike of pumpkin-things started to fade away.  Pumpkin things could actually be tasty!  In fact, just writing about those miniature pumpkin doughnut muffins makes me wish I had a batch right now...they were really THAT good!  A couple of weeks ago I posted a recipe for pumpkin cheesecake muffins, which were also really delicious, and very, very, very shortly, I'll actually be posting another delicious pumpkin recipe!  I think I like pumpkin when it's baked into muffins or yeast breads, and pumpkin pancakes are actually pretty good too.  But pumpkin pie...that's a whole other story.  

I really just don't like it. 

I guess it's strange, then, that I'm posting a recipe for classic pumpkin pie.  But, given that Thanksgiving is only a couple of short days away, and that pumpkin pie is a popular favorite around this time of year, I figured I HAD to post a pumpkin pie recipe this time.  Also because my sister wouldn't stop nagging me about making a pumpkin pie.  My sister is the only person in my family who actually likes, no, LOVES, pumpkin pie, and she's always asking for pumpkin pie during Thanksgiving and the fall season.  Her pumpkin pie requests usually get denied, because no one else in my house is willing to eat the pie with her, but I figured that this time, I would give in, and make her a pumpkin pie.  

Glazed Apple Cider Doughnuts

Sometimes, I feel like I am doing a disservice to my family and friends (and even myself at times) by baking so many treats like alllll the time, and then having to actually EAT the things I make, and then subsequently forcing other people around me to help me out with the eating bit, since I can't actually eat everything I make. That was a long sentence, but it's ok.  I've also decided that baking large quantities of things, regardless about how healthy (or as it always is in my case, NOT healthy...), is totally ok too.  What I usually do is tell myself that this is a treat, not to worry about it, and that I will just have to go extra-hard during that day's workout.  This is then what I repeat to everyone else that I give baked goods to, and encourage them to do the same. 

Aside from this helpful little advice, I tell myself that making unhealthy treats once in a while is ok, as long as it's done in moderation.  Take these glazed apple cider doughnuts.  The last time I made doughnuts was for my sister's birthday, and that was wayyyy back in March (remember these Birthday Chocolate Glazed-Doughnuts?).  Since that was like SEVEN months ago, I figured enough time had passed that frying up a batch of doughnuts was not only justified, but also necessary.  Leave it to my sister to once again suggest a delicious and doughnut-related idea.  Glazed apple-cider doughnuts were her request, and I once again, had to oblige. Spiced cake doughnuts with an apple cider glaze seemed too delicious to even consider passing up, regardless of how many calories they had or how not-healthy they actually are.

Ok, I'm done trying to rationalize my baking addiction/unhealthy-but-delicious baking habits now.  Let's just be honest with each other now.  Fried doughnuts are bad for you.  Fried doughnuts are also really yummy.  Make them, eat one, and be happy. Yeay!

Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins

Happy October, everyone!  I'm loving this fall weather and everything else related to the new season.  Hot cider and colorful leaves are some of my favorite things!  Pumpkin flavored things are starting to appear EVERYWHERE and while I'm not as big of a fan of pumpkin (shocking, I know), it's been growing on me, so I knew I had to have some pumpkin treats in store.  My sister is a huge fan of literally everything with pumpkin (actually, the only pumpkin-flavored food she hasn't liked is pumpkin Greek yogurt...I can't blame her, that sounds kinda weird to me), so last year she stocked up on canned pumpkin and pumpkin pie filling.  Seriously. This girl went on a major pumpkin shopping spree once the supermarket started selling them for 99 cents a can. I think we're gonna be good on pumpkin for a very, very, very, long time.

It's a good thing she ended up buying so much canned pumpkin; it actually came in very handy!  Pumpkin cravings were satisfied with ease throughout the year, once canned pumpkin couldn't be found as easily in stores.  My sister started making pumpkin pies (the recipe will be coming eventually!), slicing them up, and freezing the individual slices to enjoy as snacks for later.  I prefer having pumpkin in muffin-or-some-other-kind-of-bread form, so muffins were my choice when I decided to bake something with pumpkin.  I knew that to make them "extra-good," a cinnamon crumb topping would be necessary.  And cheesecake filling!?  Geez.  Too good. These muffins ended up being my favorite pumpkin treats to date.  Seriously, I never thought I'd say something like that, but it's true!

Spiced Apple Cookies with Vanilla Glaze

Soooo it's officially fall, and I couldn't be happier about it.  There's crisp breezes everywhere you go, the leaves are starting to change color, and the farmer's market that comes to Columbia every Sunday is selling hot apple cider.  It's so nice to not have to think about sweating your face off every time you have to step outside the safety of your air-conditioned home, and instead know that a light seater will suffice in getting you through the day.  The days are getting shorter (making food photography trickier, grr!), but it's ok for now; the days still aren't as short as they are in winter, which is a good thing!  In any case, it can definitely be said that I welcomed the arrival of fall and everything that comes with it with very open arms.  Except for one small thing...

My apartment on campus is FRIGID.

Seriously, frigid is the best word to describe how chilly it is inside my room and everywhere else in the building, really.  It's the strangest thing.  I remember moving in in September, and feeling how unbearably hot it was (my building is on the older side, so while my living accommodations are lovely, there's no AC), so for the first couple of weeks, living back at school was just uncomfortable, because it was just so damn hot in my room! This made for sleepless nights, not only due to the extreme heat in the building, but also because I live facing Broadway, so trying to open the window in hopes of catching even the tiniest breeze only resulted in constant noise at all hours of the night.  Sigh.  There was no weird transition from hot to cold in my building, it was suddenly just FREEZING.  I can't explain why, but I guess that's what I get for hoping for summer to end so that fall could move on in.  Silly karma. 

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon rolls are pretty irresistible treats.  I mean.  Who hasn't been casually walking in a mall, or bakery, or wherever really, when you suddenly have to stop whatever it is that you're doing, so that you can sigh and breathe in that wonderful cinnamon-y smell coming from freshly baked cinnamon rolls.  Ok, maybe I'm the only one that has to stop whatever it is that I'm doing for a moment.  I'm ok with that though.  I know I have somewhat uncanny behavioral habits on occasion.  Only a couple though, promise.  

Anyway.  Let's not get sidetracked here.  Focus on the cinnamon rolls, because that's super important.  Especially when they have pumpkin in them.  That just means they're even more important.  

Miniature Pumpkin Doughnut Muffins

Every now and then, you just come across a recipe that sounds really delicious in your head, and when you make it, you find that the results are at least twenty-three times as good as you thought they would be.  Seriously.  At least twenty-three times.  And yes, this recipe for pumpkin doughnut muffins is one of those recipes.  They were so much more delicious than I thought they were going to be.  

I mean just look at all those tiny little mini muffins.  They're covered in lots of cinnamon sugar, so you know they're going to be really delicious.  Don't skimp out on the cinnamon sugar step. The muffins themselves aren't very sweet to begin with, so the cinnamon sugar is kinda important.  And it also adds to the whole doughnut factor.

Wait.  Muffins...and doughnuts?  Yes.  Muffins and Doughnuts.  All in one.  A combination that seems to good to be true, until you actually make them and eat them, and realize that they really are that good. I couldn't get over them when I made them.  They seriously tasted just like little doughnut holes, but were baked into a mini muffin shape.  Completely adorable and completely delicious.

Caramel Apple Ice Cream

Happy October!  I can't believe we're in October already, it feels like it was only yesterday we were all wearing shorts and flip flops and pretty sundresses and going for sunny walks in the park.  I still see some people are doing that though…walking around Riverside park and campus in what looks like a summer outfit.  Not ok.  It's just not that time of the year anymore.  Sorry.  However.  The weather has pretty schizophrenic lately, cold one day and warm the next, and I guess I got a bit of that crazy weather bug.  That's why I made you guys ice cream.