This gingerbread bundt cake is a winter spice wonder. It’s moist, soft, and oh so perfect for Christmas. And since I don’t do Christmas, I’ll just eat it all anyway.
As a perk, this cake is finished off with brown butter icing. It’s pretty much the best cake ever. No bias here, of course!
I’m working on cozy holiday plans, and I’m very excited to curl up with my kids by the fire later this week while we watch movies. It’ll be great.
Just as exciting, the D.C. area is poised for 75-degree temps this Christmas Eve. Heck yeah! If we don’t get a white Christmas, can we get a tropical one instead? I’m down with that. It might be global warming, but let’s not talk about that right now.
This week, I’m still chugging away at work. Most school districts all over the country are on winter break, but my school system is insisting on three days of instruction this week, which means I will work through Wednesday and then run for the hills. It’s not that bad, except that people keep asking me how much I’m enjoying vacation, and I have to tell them that nope, not there yet. Gone are the days when winter break was two weeks long!
Okay, enough kvetching. I’ll talk about cake instead. Glorious, glorious cake.
This cake has all the elements of gingerbread: molasses, cinnamon, ginger, and lots of love. But it’s a cake, and it’s way too easy to eat about three slices at once. I don’t have gingerbread often, but when I do, I take it very seriously.
The brown butter icing takes just a few minutes to make, and it’s the perfect rich accompaniment to a dark, spicy cake. I can’t recommend it enough!
Stay tuned tomorrow for my next foray into food film. Until then, enjoy all the holiday sugar you can!
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350. Coat a bundt pan with cooking spray and dust with flour. Set aside.
- In a bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat until smooth. Mix in the molasses until blended. Working alternately, beat in the flour and milk until all ingredients are incorporated and smooth.
- Bake for 45-55 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Cool for 10 minutes, and then invert onto a plate. Cool completely.
- When the cake is cool, make the brown butter icing. In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and let it cook until golden in color, anywhere from 3-5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.
- Stir in the powdered sugar and vanilla and gradually add the milk until the mixture becomes spreadable. If the mixture is too thin, add more powdered sugar. If it's too thick, add more milk.
- Spread the icing over the cooled cake. Let it set.
- Slice and serve!
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Then, there are the desserts that look unassuming and unexceptional, but they blow the popular choices out of the water. These mini-bundts are in that category. You know, the how-is-this-so-good-I-can’t-stop-eating-it category.
And they’re pretty healthy, too! These pumpkin cakes might be a baking miracle. They have no butter (I’m not counting the icing here) and they’re gluten-free. Let’s do a happy dance!
I’d like to do a shout-out here to my fellow bloggers who also work full-time on top of blogging. I’m not sure if anyone really takes the time to think about what it takes to essentially work two jobs. Every day, those of us who blog on the side engage in a crazy balancing act.
In case you think this is one of those my-life-is-crazier-than-yours assertions, it’s not. I’m not living your life, so I can’t speak to your stress level or the amount that you need to get done on a daily basis. Honestly, our modern lives dictate that we all engage in way too much at the same time. Every friend of mine is a professional when it comes to multitasking.
So as you observe these pumpkin mini-bundts that are not just smothered with lovely maple icing, but that are also gluten-free, remember that I probably baked them in the dead of the morning before rushing off to my day job wrangling teenagers. That will make them more delicious, right?
This my favorite pumpkin cake recipe, bar none. The fact that it’s gluten-free is just an accidental bonus. Kenny, who dislikes all things pumpkin, loves this recipe. He gobbles it up every time. And even better, there’s no mixer required. It’s just adding dry ingredients to liquid in a bowl. Simple!
What makes this pumpkin cake so irresistible is the oat flour. I know I’ve been promoting oat flour ever since this blog began, and it’s not because Bob Red’s Mill is paying me (they’re not, but I wouldn’t mind). It’s because gluten-free oat flour gives a special consistency to cake, making it even denser and more moist than cake baked with flour. If you haven’t tried it, in the name of all things holy, do it now.
And as for the maple icing, I strongly prefer an easy stovetop icing to a glaze. Glazes are nice, but this is much thicker and has more of a strong maple flavor, providing a perfect complement (yes, it’s spelled that way in this usage) to the pumpkin.
Well, kids, I gotta vamoose. I have a bazillion things to do because, well, I have two jobs and three small kids on the side. But I’ll catch you next week!
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350. Spray a mini-bundt pan with cooking spray and set aside.
- In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients except the sugars until well incorporated. Set aside. In a medium-sized bowl, combine the eggs and sugars and mix well. Add the pumpkin and oil and stir again. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and beat until a smooth batter has formed.
- Spoon the batter into the mini-bundt molds, filling up about three-quarters of the way. This recipe makes about 18 little cakes, so you might have to bake two batches depending on the size and yield of your pan.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool completely and remove the cakes carefully from their molds.
- When the cakes are out and ready, make the icing. Melt the butter and maple syrup in a saucepan, stirring to combine over low-medium heat. Remove the pot from the heat and add the powdered sugar, stirring until fully incorporated.
- Spoon the icing over the mini-bundts. Allow to set. Store covered.
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