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Remember the Tunnel Of Fudge Cake, a chocolate bundt cake with an inner circle of chocolate pudding? Here’s a sophisticated version for fall: a bundt with a circle of apple streusel.
Celebrate fall’s apple harvest with this recipe from Zulka, a family-owned business that makes premium sugar.
RECIPE: APPLE STREUSEL BUNDT CAKE
Ingredients For The Cake
4 large eggs
10 ounces Greek yogurt
2/3 cup apple sauce
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all purpose flour
2 cups brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon sea salt
2 sticks unsalted butter
Ingredients For The Apple Streusel
1½ cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons flour
6 tablespoons butter
2 cups apples*, peeled and diced
¾ cup pecans, chopped
Ingredients For The Icing
4 ounces cream cheese
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1½ cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
Preparation
1. MAKE the apple streusel. Combine 1½ cups brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, 2 tablespoons flour and 6 tablespoons butter in a medium bowl, and stir until the butter is evenly mixed in. Add the apples and pecans and stir well. Keep chilled until ready to use.
2. PREHEAT the oven to 325°F. Butter a 12-cup bundt pan and coat with flour, tapping the sides to shake out excess flour.
3. MAKE the cake. Whisk the eggs in a medium bowl, then add the yogurt, apple sauce and 1½ teaspoons vanilla. Mix well and set aside.
4. COMBINE the remaining 3 cups flour, 2 cups brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Mix on low speed until just combined. Add 2 sticks of butter one tablespoon at a time, and mix on low until well combined. Add half of the egg mixture and beat on low. Add the remaining mixture and raise speed to medium and mix for 30 seconds.
5. POUR half of the batter into the bundt pan, spreading evenly. Spoon the apple streusel filling in the middle of the batter, making sure none reaches the edge of the pan; gently press into the batter. Top with the remaining batter and carefully spread so that no streusel is showing.
6. BAKE for 40-55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then flip onto a cake plate or serving platter and carefully remove the bundt pan. Let cool completely before icing.
7. MAKE the icing: Combine the cream cheese, 2 tablespoons butter, 1½ cups powdered sugar, lemon juice and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Mix well with an electric mixer. Drizzle or pour over the top of the cake.
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*Best apples for this recipe: Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, Mutsu, Pink Lady.
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[1] An apple streusel-filled bundt cake, perfect for fall feasting (photo © Zulka).
[2] Granny Smith apples are a good choice for this recipe (photo © Good Eggs).
[3] Pecans (photo © American Pecans)
[4] The apple streusel bundt, inside (photo © Zulka).
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THE HISTORY OF THE BUNDT CAKE
The bundt pan was created in 1950 by H. David Dahlquist, the founder of Minneapolis-based Nordic Ware, a manufacturer of kitchenware products. He did so at the request of Rose Joshua and Fannie Schanfield, members of the Minneapolis chapter of Hadassah, a Jewish women’s service organization.
According to an article in the Fall 2005 issue of Generations, the newsletter of the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest, Fannie remembers a Hadassah luncheon when Rose lamented the quality of light and fluffy American-style cakes, and longed for the rich, dense cakes of her European childhood. These, however, required a special type of of pan—one with a hole in the center that allowed heat to penetrate heavy cake batter from all sides. With this type of form, a heavier batter could be baked without leaving under-baked dough in the center.
Fannie’s husband arranged a meeting with Dahlquist, and Rose joined her to show Rose’s mother’s ceramic kugelhopf cake pan. This became the prototype for the Bundt pan.
Dahlquist modified the design by introducing folds in the fluted edges, and fashioned the pan out of aluminum. Some months later, a dozen Nordic Ware factory “seconds” were delivered to Hadassah member Mary Juster’s home, and Hadassah sold the pans to members for $4.00 each.
How The Bundt Got Its Name
The way the story is told, the name bundt comes from the German word bund, which means “community” or “a gathering of people”; and that Dahlquist just added the letter “t” to the end and trademarked the word.
However, there is a citation for a “bundt form” as early as the 1903 edition of the famous Milwaukee Settlement Cookbook†, 63 years before Dahlquist filed for his trademark on March 24, 1966. One can surmise that the Jewish women of Milwaukee had the cookbook and asked for a bundt pan. Still, Dahlquist was granted the patent.
In 1960, the Good Housekeeping Cookbook showed a pound cake baked in a Bundt pan; that feature turned the Bundt into the number-one selling cake pan in America. But it was the 1966 Pillsbury Bake-Off, where the Tunnel of Fudge Cake recipe baked in a Bundt won second place, that launched the Bundt trend.
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†In the 1903 Milwaukee Settlement Cookbook, “Bundt form” is found on page 319 in the following text (under BUNDT KUCHEN, No. 2): “Grease Bundt form (a heavy round fluted pan with tube in center) well, and flour lightly. Cream butter and sugar well, add beaten yolks and beat, then the raised mixture and the rest of the flour, and lastly the beaten whites. Pour in pan, let rise until very light, and bake until well done and brown in a moderately hot oven, about forty-five minutes.” (Read details of the Settlement Cookbook source material). The Settlement Cookbook, first published in 1901 in Milwaukee to raise funds for the Settlement House for immigrants, is considered to be the most successful fund-raising cookbook in American history. It is still in print; the 1976 edition was named to the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame.
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