Cinnamon Swirl Bundt Cake
Ah, cinnamon. Sweet, sweet (and just a tad spicy) cinnamon. It's been a while.
I have three favorite dessert flavors: chocolate (and chocolate chips - nay, chocolate chunks), lemon, and cinnamon. And I've featured plenty of chocolate and chocolate chunk filled and lemon and lemon filled recipes on the blog. I've also posted quite a few cinnamon desserts. But now it's time for another one.
Enter Cinnamon Swirl Bundt Cake. Just the names itself is exciting. Cinnamon swirl. So sophisticated.
But what's even more exciting and sophisticated about this cinnamon swirl cake is its taste. It's so exciting and sophisticated, in fact, that it's almost too difficult to put into words. But I'll try my best. For you.
This cinnamon swirl bundt cake has the ultimate texture. The exterior is crunchy but with an almost chewy, stick-to-your-teeth quality (chewy cake! I repeat, chewy cake! <3). And the inside is super soft and tender and moist.
And the combination, or should I say contrast, of the two textures affords you the kind of bite where you close your eyes and chew very slowly to savor every second of that dreamy mouthful.
And after that comes the food dance. Because you're so happy.
You know what I'm talking about. Don't feign ignorance. Everyone has a food dance. It's the dance you do when you taste something that's so good it makes you want to move and rock and shake and sway. Or dance.
Most people do the two-step. Others simply sway in their chairs. Those who haven't been blessed with a sense of rhythm resort to shuffling their feet. And some people even break out into the Running Man or Moonwalk. I've witnessed this in real life.
As for the taste. This cinnamon cake consists of a simple vanilla batter which is poured into the bundt pan. Well, 3/4ths of the batter is poured in. The last 1/4 is mixed with a combination of brown sugar, applesauce, and cinnamon. This mixture is then swirled into the vanilla batter. Hence the cinnamon swirl.
Light, delicate, vanilla cake batter. With swirls of moist, rich, cinnamon-y batter. Plus an awesome cinnamon glaze. In one forkful. Amen.
And you can whisk this cake together in 5 minutes. With one bowl and one spatula. By hand or in a machine.
After which you pop the cake into the oven. For over an hour. Which is the hardest part about making this cake. The wait time.
But they say that good things come to those who wait. They're right. In this case, at least.
This cinnamon swirl bundt cake recipe comes from my Mom. As do lots of my favorite recipes. She used to make this cake all the time. But then she stopped. Only because I started making it all the time. That's the only reason. Trust me.
I did adapt the recipe a little. I made a few tweaks to the cake batter recipe. And I added the glaze to the cake. To make it prettier. And taste even more fabulous.
But thanks Mom. For the recipe. I do appreciate it ever so much.
My nephew is the pickiest eater you'll find. He literally eats like 5 foods. Not 5 food groups. 5 foods. This cinnamon swirl cake is one of them.
I make this cake for him every week, and every week, he finishes the entire thing. By himself. Which I guess isn't such a difficult task considering this cake pretty much makes up 50% of his diet.
But why am I telling you this? To illustrate that even the pickiest eater I know eats this cake. And loves it. And probably does a food dance while he's eating it. He's only 5. But let me tell you, he's got moves.
I'll just go ahead and predict that you'll probably display dance moves you didn't even know were in your arsenal after you eat this cake. It just brings out all the hidden dance potential inside of you.
cinnamon swirl bundt cake
Yield: 1 large bundt cake
1/2 cup orange juice (or apple juice)
1/2 cup water
1 1/4 cups canola/vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups packed flour
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cinnamon Swirl:
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Cinnamon Glaze:
1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Milk or water for thinning
Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a large bundt pan well.
In a large bowl, whisk together the first 5 wet ingredients. Stir together the dry ingredients and mix with the wet until the batter is mostly smooth (a few lumps are okay).
Pour 3/4 of the batter into prepared bundt pan. Add the swirl ingredients directly into the bowl with the remaining 1/4 batter and mix to combine. Pour swirl over batter in the bundt pan and then swirl the two mixtures together with a knife.
Bake cake for 55-75 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
Once cake has cooled, invert out onto a sheet of parchment paper or foil. Whisk together glaze ingredients until smooth and drizzle over cooled cake.
On a completely unrelated note, super easy assembly:
photo from dump a day dot com
