Dienstag, 24. November 2009

TWD: All-in-one Holiday Bundt Cake

I am still a cameo-participant of TWD, but never mind, I go on baking and trying to improve my cake-abilities and maybe someday I will do it on the blog-roll :o]!

This week, the fourth of the November recipes was on the schedule, the All-in-One Holiday Bundt Cake from pages 186 and 187, chosen by  Britin of The Nitty Britty.

I had some trouble with the ingredients:
I have never ever seen canned pumpkin purree in my whole life, but some other bakers were so kind to help me out and affirm my decision to take self-made purree. I wasn't sure about the consistence of canned purree, but the self-made version turned out to be fine. I just put the pumpkin in the oven instead of cooking it in a pan, as I would usually do, so it didn't get too moisty.
Then, it is really not that easy to get pecans. DM doesn't have them, the usual supermarkets for sure definitely don't have them. But even at the Naschmarkt I didn't find them, what really came as a surprise as usually there is nothing you can't get there. (Maybe I didn't look thoroughly enough?). At my almost last hope, a high-end bio"grocery", they usually sell it - but they ran out of stock. Finally, I found it in a little shop specialized on sweets and decorations for bakers. It the very last minute.
And then again the cranberries. Cranberries are just not very usual in these latitudes. But I found dried ones, and this time not-sugared ones.
I skipped the optional maple-icing, as maple-syrup is again not very usual (though not that hard to get, but still very expensive).

So I had everything together, but I hope I won't have to do such a schlepp through the city every week!
(I won't, at least in December - I already had a look at the upcoming recipes for next month, and I got to say - wow, I am really already looking forward to December!!)

So, here is how it turned out:
As always I made a "real" one, and some little ones for trial and error and tasting. I halfed the recipe but still got a "children-bundt cake" and some made in a mold for brioche out of it.

Here the big one, straigth out of the oven (will it come out of the mold? Will it break? Will it stick to the pan? Panic!)

No, everything went fine!




And here the inside-look and one of the little ones (some I topped with dark cranberry-chocolate. It was ok, but the chocolate would not have been necessary - made me learn to stick to the recipe...)







I know, I know, I still have to  work on the presentation and the looks of my cakes and tartes, but for the moment I am sososo, well, what to say...  proud is not the rigth word, maybe more: astonished, that it is really me who makes these delicious cakes, that I am satisfied with that.

If you want to see what it looks like if really excellent bakers do it, just have a look at some of the other bakers result! Some Most are really just amazing!!