Recipe: Nutmeg Bundt Cake
Summary: Fragrant with the intoxicating smell of fresh nutmeg, this dense, moist cake shouts November, December and Fall. It is a perfectly easy holiday-time dessert.
Ingredients
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 5 teaspoons freshly ground nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 ½ sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small cubes*
- 2 cups packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts (optional; I omitted for child request)
- 1 1/2 cups sour cream (I used low-fat)
- 1 cup milk (I used 1% milk)
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Decoration: Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350F°. Mist a standard Bundt pan with nonstick spray. Set pan aside.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together flour, nutmeg, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Add cubed butter to the dry mixture and mix on low until the butter is cut into the flour mixture, and is about the size of peas or even smaller. Mix in the brown sugar and walnuts (if using).
- In a 4-cup measuring cup, add sour cream and milk (it should be at the 2 ½ cup mark). Add eggs and vanilla and whisk until well combined.
- Add the wet mixture to the flour/butter mixture, and mix gently, being sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl. Batter will be thick. Scrape batter into prepared Bundt pan, smoothing the top.
- Bake 45-50 minutes, until a toothpick or cake pick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool in pan for 20-30 minutes. Slide a knife around the outside edge just to loosen it, and invert the cake onto a cooling rack. Allow cake to cool completely and place on a serving platter.
[1] - Just before cutting to serve, dust top of cake with confectioner’s sugar (aka powdered sugar), for pretty! (An easy way to do this is to put the confectioner’s sugar in a small strainer and shake the strainer overtop the cake, and the sugar will drift down like snow.)
- Serves 12-16.
Quick notes
*You must use the butter chilled. If it is at room temperature, you won’t be able to “cut” it into the flour mixture and make crumbs.
Source
Slightly adapted from Saveur [2] issue #134, and they based it on a recipe in “A World of Cake,” by Krystina Castella (Storey Publishing, 2010).
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Diet type: Vegetarian
Number of servings (yield): 12-16
[3]More nutmeg?
Want another great use for freshly-grated nutmeg, to justify buying the whole nutmegs? Try my fave Heirloom Cottage Cheese Pie [4]! It can be dessert, and I have also eaten it for breakfast the next day. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Bundt cakes I have baked for #Bundtamonth:
Nov. 2012: Nutmeg Bundt Cake [5]
Oct. 2012: Pumpkin Pecan Bundt Cake with Maple Glaze [6]
Sept. 2012: Zucchini Cookie Butter Bundt Cake [7]
You can see a wonderful gallery of our #Bundtamonth cakes here [8].