Cinnamon Sugar Goodness: The Snickerdoodle Bundt

A while back, you might remember that Mary, the Food Librarian, made 30 bundts in 30 days to celebrate National Bundt Day.  Actually, she has done this twice, so on her blog there are no fewer than 60 bundts (and probably a lot more since she is the queen of bundts).  That means that anytime I want a bundt cake, I just turn to her since she has so many choices.  

I needed something for Shabbat dinner for a good sized group of people, so a bundt cake is always a good choice.  It is fairly easy to make, it feeds a lot of people and it actually tastes better the second day.  I made this Snickerdoodle bundt on New Year's Eve and served it with sparkling apple cider sorbet.  The apple and the cinnamon sugar were a really nice combination.

This cake was so good, I could have just kept eating it and eating it.  The outside had a nice cinnamon sugar crunch, just like a Snickerdoodle cookie and the swirl was so yummy!  It brought a nice sweetness and great flavor to the cake, which was rich and light at the same time.  I made this cake parve (substituted margarine for butter and tofutti sour cream for the regular stuff) and it was still delicious.  I can't even imagine how good it would be made with all dairy ingredients.

There are two slightly tricky parts to this cake.  First, you really want to coat the whole pan well with cooking spray and then with the cinnamon sugar mixture.  Make sure that you get it into all the nooks and crannies so that you get that crust on the outside of the cake.  The second tricky part comes at the end.  When you bake the cake, you cover the top with a cinnamon sugar mixture.  Then, you have to turn the cake over, so the top with the mixture becomes the bottom.  You must, must, must do this over the sink so that you don't end up with cinnamon and sugar all over the kitchen.  Seriously, listen to me on this one.  If you can master both these parts (and neither is hard, so don't worry), you will be rewarded with a bundt of deliciousness.  Next time, I might put chocolate chips in the swirl.  Mmmmmm....

Although I found the recipe on Food Librarian, it actually comes from Dozen Flours.  You can find it here.

MSC October: Snickerdoodle Cupcakes or Yay for Cinnamon

I love cinnamon, so I was super excited to make these snickerdoodle cupcakes.  Katie from Katiecakes picked these cupcakes for October for the Martha Stewart Cupcake Club.  I really liked these cupcakes.  The only issue I had with them is that I had no cake flour, so I had to make a substitution, which made the cupcakes slightly gummy, but they still had good flavor.

I served these cupcakes two different times (I intended to make half the recipe, but forgot when I went to cream the butter).  One time, I used Martha's fluffy white frosting, sprinkled with cinnamon.  I served them on Sukkot and they were a hit with everyone in our very first sukkah.

Then, I put unfrosted cupcakes in the freezer, figuring I would deal with them before the October 15th posting date.  And then, we went to New York for an amazing wedding -- the bride is like our 4th sister -- and when I got back on Monday, I realized it was time for single-mommydom, which is not great for baking.  However, the other day I was finally able to whip up a new frosting.  This time, I decided to make cinnamon, to compliment the cinnamon flavor in the cupcakes. I'm sure there is a recipe out there somewhere, but I just made the fluffy white frosting and tossed in a bunch of cinnamon until it tasted right.  I really liked the way the cinnamon frosting tasted.  I also experimented with piping.  I haven't gotten it exactly right yet, but I'm working on it.

We took the cupcakes to our friends Mike and Kim's house, since they just had a new baby.  We had a yummy (but meat) dinner, so I didn't get to taste the cupcakes, but hopefully everyone there enjoyed them.

You can find the cupcake recipe here, on Martha's website.