Pumpkin Tres Leches Bundt Cake for #BundtaMonth

After 10 years near the equator, I am finally living in a place with seasons.  I am not sure exactly that there are four seasons in Cairo because, for me, one of the signs of autumn is leaves that turn lovely yellow, orangey, brown colors and then fall from the trees.  The nights and even days are getting cooler but the trees stay steadfastly green and the flowers are still blooming.  But since I have become part of the blogging community, I can’t ignore the most definitive sign of autumn:  All the pumpkin recipes that are flooding the internets.   This month, I am joining a group of bloggers dedicated to Bundt cake, large and mini.  Because I love a Bundt cake.  With a nod to My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I have to ask, Who can resist a cake with an hole in it?  And the theme for October is, you guessed it, pumpkin.  And since October sits nicely between Mexican Independence Day in September and American Thanksgiving in November, I decided to make a pumpkin tres leches Bundt cake.  If you are not a fan of saturated cake, by all means, just make the pumpkin Bundt and forget drenching it in the sweet milk mixture.  But I can tell you that I took this out to a dinner party for dessert and people were swooning over it in a most dramatic fashion.  It is that good.

Ingredients 
For the Bundt cake:
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups sugar
3 cups flour plus extra for preparing the Bundt pan
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1⁄2 teaspoon salt



For the milk mixture:
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup milk

For serving:
Unsweetened whipped cream (optional but highly recommended)

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and butter or non-stick spray your Bundt pan extremely well.  Sprinkle in a generous amount of flour and make sure it covers all the way up the middle part of the pan.  Set aside.

Heap all of the ingredients for the Bundt cake in your mixing bowl.  I measured out the dry ingredients first and then topped them with the wet.

Mix until well combined.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula and make sure there isn’t any still dry flour at the bottom of the bowl.

Mix on medium for at least three minutes.

Pour the batter into your prepared Bundt pan and bake in your preheated oven for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

While your Bundt is baking, whisk together the ingredients for your sweet milk mixture.  Set aside.

When your Bundt comes out of the oven, allow to cool for about five minutes and then run a knife gently around the inside of the top and middle of the cake to loosen it.  Place a plate over the top of the pan and invert to remove the cake.

Poke the cake all over with a wooden skewer or satay stick.  The little holes will allow the milk mixture to seep into the cake.

Pour about half of the sweet milk mixture into the Bundt pan and gently ease the cake back into the pan so it doesn’t splash out.

Poke holes in the bottom of the cake.

Slowly drizzle the balance of the milk mixture over it.  Cover with cling film and put the whole thing in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve.

To remove from the pan when you are ready to serve, invert a cake plate with a slope or sides on top of the Bundt pan and turn the cake over quickly.  Remove the pan.  Some sweet milk mixture will seep out of the cake.  Scrape out any sweet milk that is left behind in the pan and drizzle it over the cake.

Cut slices of cake and top with unsweetened whipped cream, if desired.  And drizzle on some of the sweet milk mixture.

Enjoy!

To learn more about BundtaMonth or to join the fabulous group of bakers for next month's challenge, head on over to Baker Street and Cake Duchess, the hosts of this Bundt-loving group.

After you have drooled over their lovely creations, scroll down to see the rest of the participating bloggers' beautiful Bundts.

Pecan Golden Syrup Bundt Cake

My house has been full these last few weeks, filled with family and good times.  Of course, it has kept me busy but it is a joy to have more folks to feed.  Since I am always looking for new ideas, I am delighted to take part for the first time in Belleau Kitchen's Random Recipe Challenge.  

Here’s how the Random Recipe Challenge works:   Number your cookbooks and choose one randomly.  Or make a big pile of them and pick one out with your eyes closed.  Then make the first recipe on the first random page you open.   Since I belong to EatYourBooks,  this was very easy.  Right now I have 89 cookbooks registered (Don’t ask me how many aren’t yet!) so I asked my daughter to pick a number and she said 11.  I counted down and the 11^th book on my list is Nigella’s Kitchen.  One of my very favorite cookbooks!  The random page I opened to was her Pecan Maple Bundt Cake, which I had yet to make, so it was perfect.  I don’t have maple syrup in Cairo but thankfully the Random Recipe rules allow for substitutions for availability or dietary restriction.  So here goes.

Ingredients

For the pecan filling:

1 rounded 1/2 cup or 75g plain flour

2 rounded tablespoons or 30g soft unsalted butter

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup or 150g pecans (or walnuts) (I used pecans, of course.) 

125ml maple or golden syrup (I used Lyle’s Golden Syrup.)

For the cake:

2 1/2 cups or 310g flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda or bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 rounded 1/2 cup or 125g soft unsalted butter

Scant 3/4 cup or 160g sugar

2 eggs

1 cup or 250ml sour cream or crème fraîche

1–2 teaspoons confectioners' or icing sugar, for decoration

Method

Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease your Bundt pan. 

First, make the filling.  Toast your pecans in a baking pan for about 10-15 minutes in the preheating oven.  Watch them carefully so they don’t scorched.  Chop the pecans roughly.

Mix the flour with the butter using a fork.  You want it to look like small crumbs.  

Stir in the cinnamon, chopped pecans and golden syrup.  This will be very thick, almost solid.   Set aside.

To make the cake batter, measure your dry cake ingredients into a small bowl: the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Mix well. 

Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl with beaters or in your standing mixer.   

Then beat in one tablespoon of the flour mixture, then one egg.  

Then add another tablespoonful of flour mixture followed by the second egg.

Add the rest of the flour mixture and beat while adding the sour cream.  The batter will be very thick.

Spoon just more than half of the cake batter around the Bundt pan.  Spread the batter up the sides so that you make a channel of sorts in the middle of the batter.  This is to avoid having the filling leak out while baking.

Use a tablespoon to fill the channel in the batter with your pecan filling. 

Cover with the remaining batter and smooth the top. 

Bake in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes.   Check with a cake tester after 30 minutes.  Make sure to get the tester into the cake part because the filling will probably not come out clean, even when the cake is baked through.

Let the cake cool for 10-15 minutes and then loosen the sides with a small spatula or knife.  Turn the cake out.  

Cool completely and then decorate by sprinkling with icing or confectioners’ sugar.  This cake was gone in a heartbeat!  I think they even licked the plate. 

Enjoy!

If you would like to join the next challenge, follow Belleau Kitchen on Twitter or join the group on Facebook. 

Click on the graphic to see how other bloggers have met the challenge this month!