Milk chocolate is not really my favourite chocolate. But I was ready to give it a try.
The mini chocolate bundts look like an Austrian dessert (I already mentioned it and the debate about the name, that leaves a bad taste, here), and one many people do not like a lot. (Don't ask me why. Mini-chocolate cakes with a bit of hazelnuts in the dough, covered by a dark-chocolate glazé, served warm with whipped cream - personally I don't see anything wrong in here. Nevertheless, I can't remember having ever eaten it ...)
But still - I am always ready to try something out!
What made me a little bit more interested in the mini-bundts was the "Playing around" section. Normally, I don't got for it becasuse I am such a newby in baking, I can be happy when I manage the recipes just as they are, without any fancy playing around. But first, there was an option to use buttermilk, and I had some leftovers from the Cocoa-nana-bread. And secondly, there was this little sentence, stating that we could use other nuts and/or dried fruits for the nut-swirl. Dried fruits.
And suddenly I had a vision. I love figs. And I think that figs and chocolate do match perfectly. And - I even think that figs and milk chocolate matches even better.Converted to grams I had to use 169g chopped nuts. I used chopped cashews, maybe my favourite nuts, and three dried figs (chopped very finely). I left out just as much nuts that the whole volume stayed the same. Sorry, but re-calculating into cups just overstrains my mathematical abilities.
(left: chopped cashews with figs and cocoa for the swirl)
As many other TWD-bakers I don't have mini-bundt pans, so I used my silicone form for 6 brioche, which I also often use for muffins.It turned out, that I had batter for 12 mini-cakes! Maybe original mini-bundt pans are just bigger than my brioche baking dish.
I tried to leave out a hole in the middle by rolling some parchment paper and putting it in the middle of the form. I know that the sense of the hole in the bundt-pan is to let the air circulate, and that a rolled piece of parchment paper doesn't serve this purpose. It was more to try if I can get out the form of a bundt cake.
Well, yes, it works. But not very well, and I guess it is not necessary. The mini-"bundts" are alright, even without a hole in the middle.
When I was preparing and baking this, I already had the feeling that milk-chocolate, figs and nuts could turn out to become an all-time favourite. (So much for my hesitations at the beginning about milk chocolate... it is always worthwhile to give things a try!!)And what can I say? It definitely did. This was more than perfect. The figs are not too dominant, but there is a slight note. The cocoa-nut-fig swirl is just wonderful. The milk-chocolate works pretty fine in this mix. The mini-cakes are just the size to be less than a whole slice of cake, but more than a "beside the coffee-cup" sweet. Per-fect.
Can I take a bath in this?
