RECIPE: Halloween Or Thanksgiving Bundt Cake

October 12, 2014 at 8:12 am · Filed under Cookies-Cake-Pastry, Halloween & Fall, Recipes

The best seasonal bundt cake is a pumpkin bundt. Here are two versions, one for Halloween and one for Thanksgiving.

You can use:

A special Nordicware pumpkin bundt cake pan

A single conventional bundt cake pan (for a shorter cake)

Two conventional bundt cakes, to approximate the style of the specialty pumpkin bundt pan (it won’t be quite as round)

Next, pick your flavor. While chocolate and lemon poppy cakes are always popular, think seasonally:

Apple cake (see yesterday’s recipe for Apple Streusel Bundt Cake

Carrot cake

Cranberry-orange cake

Maple cake

Pumpkin cake

Sticky toffee cake

For Halloween, it’s a pumpkin or a jack-o-lantern. Photo courtesy Nordic Ware.

Spice cake (Nordic Ware makes a delicious Caramel Apple Spice Cake mix)

If you’re making a two-bundt recipe, with the special pumpkin bundt or a traditional bundt, you can bake two different, complementary flavors (apple and carrot, chocolate and spice cake, for example).

For Thanksgiving, it’s a pumpkin plucked
from the pumpkin patch. Photo courtesy
Nordic Ware.

RECIPE: HALLOWEEN PUMPKIN BUNDT CAKE

Ingredients

2 bundt cakes (1 if you want the “short version”)

Vanilla frosting, tinted orange (here’s a buttercream frosting recipe, or use royal icing or other favorite, such as caramel frosting [recipe below])

Vanilla frosting, tinted green

Ice cream cone for stem

Optional: black icing or cake decorating gel for jack o’lantern face.

Preparation

1. BAKE the bundt(s) from your favorite recipe or a cake mix. Cool.

2. MAKE or buy vanilla frosting. Reserve 1/4 to tint green; tint 3/4 of the batch orange with food color. Mix equal parts of yellow and red food coloring to make orange. For a darker blood orange, add more red. For a lighter pumpkin orange, use more yellow.

3. ASSEMBLE. Add a light layer of frosting in-between the bundts to hold them together. Don’t extend to the edge of the bundts; the frosting should not be seen from the outside. Insert the cone as the stem. If you like, you can fully frost the cake and draw a jack o’lantern face on the side of the Halloween bundt. For the Thanksgiving version, pipe some green leaves and tendrils instead.

RECIPE: CARAMEL FROSTING

This recipe was adapted from one we found in Southern Living (September 2005). You can make a plain caramel frosting, or add pecans and/or coconut.

Ingredients

2 cans (14-ounces) sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Optional: 1-1/2 cups chopped, toasted pecans

Optional: 1-1/2 cups sweetened shredded coconut

Preparation

1. COMBINE all ingredients in a 3-quart saucepan. Stir and bring to a boil, stirring constantly, over medium-low heat. Cook, stirring continuously, for 3 to 5 minutes or until the mixture reaches a pudding-like thickness.

2. ADD optional ingredients: pecans and coconut. Remove from heat. Let cool and frost the cake as shown in the photos above.

Please follow and like us: