TWD: Double Apple Bundt Cake

Another amazing bundt cake from Dorie! This is a perfect cake to bring in the fabulous Fall weather we are finally getting here in New Orleans! The cake contains both grated apples and apple butter so it stays beautifully moist for at least four days (as long as ours lasted!). A few people thought the cake was maybe a little too sweet, but I used an unsweetened apple butter with no spices and I thought the sweetness level was spot on. I did sub 1/4 cup of brown sugar for some of the white and I might even sub more next time- I love the combination of brown sugar and apples! I also upped the spices just a little since my apple butter was so plain. I The cake is studded with pecans and raisins with add a really great textural contrast. Thank you Lynne of Honey Muffin for choosing this week's Tuesdays with Dorie cake!

TWD: Mocha-Walnut Marbled Bundt Cake

First of all, I have no idea what I did to these pictures but they are in some kind of state where they cannot be edited or rotated in any fashion therefore they will be forever sideways....

In short this cake was delicious! Probably my favorite bundt cake of all time! I toasted the walnuts before grinding them up in the food processor and it really helped bring out a nutty flavor in the cake. My marbling didn't reveal the lovely ginko shape that Dorie suggests but the cake itself popped easily out of the pan. The cake was moist with a wonderful crumb. This was Derrick's favorite Tuesday with Dorie recipe to date. Thank you Erin of When in Doubt...Leave it at 350 for choosing a spectacular recipe!

TWD: Rick Katz's brownies for Julia (and milk chocolate mini bundts)

Ok, let me be honest with you here, the Saints won the Superbowl so there is pretty much nothing else on my mind! There is an enormous Saints parade tonight which I'm planning to brave with the little girls. So I'm going to make this short and sweet.

These brownies are a recipe from pastry chef Rick Katz by way of Dorie Greenspan. Dorie explains that Rick used to make these brownies for Julia Child while Dorie and Julia were working on Julia's cookbook. The brownies are unusual because half of the sugar and eggs are stirred into the chocolate/butter and the other half are beaten until they are frothy and almost meringue-like and then folded into the chocolate. Finally, a small amount of flour is sprinkled over the top and gently folded into the batter. The result is a very, very dense and fudgy brownie. A few of the Tuesday with Dorie bakers thought they were a little too fudgy (it's pretty much impossible to cut them into neat little squares) but I thought they were perfect. Sorry for the very ugly brownie picture, there was literally one little corner piece left in the pan when I went to take a picture! These are so good I'm trying to hold myself back from baking them again. This delicious recipe was chosen by Tanya of Chocolatechic

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Last week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe was for Milk Chocolate Mini Bundts and was selected by Kristen of I'm Right About Everything. I couldn't pass up these adorable little cakes because I love milk chocolate and it is almost never used in baking! I loved the sweet, delicate chocolate flavor of these cakes. A few of the TWD bakers mentioned that the cakes were a little dry so I used buttermilk in place of the regular milk and made sure to keep a close eye on them as they baked. The cakes popped right out of the pan but ended up looking a little bit shaggy. I skipped the chocolate glaze as it seemed to be causing a bit of difficulty for most of the bakers and served the cakes with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream.

TWD: All in One Holiday Bundt

I'm very thankful for many things this Thanksgiving season: good health, a new addition to our family, a comfortable place to live, a loving family, and the fact that this month Tuesdays with Dorie is allowing it's members to post November recipes in any order they wish (as long as the post is on a Tuesday)!! I went to Sam's Club on Friday and stocked up on Fall baking supplies. I got a giant bag of crisp, sweet Gala apples, four pounds of butter, a sack of fresh cranberries, and a three pack of pumpkin puree. In retrospect I might have gone a bit overboard...but isn't that what Sam's is all about? So I just had to make this cake which was chosen by Britin of The Nitty Britty (recipe will appear on her blog later this month and can of course be found in Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan). The All in One Holiday Bundt is just that: pumpkin, Fall spices, diced apple, fresh cranberries, and pecans all rolled into a super-moist, flavorful cake.



I will probably make this cake again later this week- it was just that good...and I have plenty of ingredients on hand.

TWD: Banana Bundt Cake

I love cake pans so much. It is really hard for me not to buy non-functional or at least slightly functional yet extremely cute baking pans. So you have no idea how lovely it was for me to receive a variety specialty bakeware as wedding presents. One of the nicest pans I got was the NordicWare Fleur de Lis Bundt Pan and I'm embarrassed to say that here I am, more than two years after my wedding and this is the first week that I've whipped the sucker out! But once I saw how beautifully my cake popped out of this wonderful pan I quickly baked up another bundt too- now I think I have the bundt-bug because I'm dying to make another one!

Anyway, this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe for a Classic Banana Bundt Cake was chosen by Mary of The Food Librarian. This cake was pleasantly easy to put together (a must for me now with two babies under the age of two) and it smelled wonderful as it baked. I am not a huge banana bread fan so I didn't love this cake but I will say that it had a great moist, tight crumb and everyone who tasted it really liked it. I think one of the great parts of this cake is that the bananas were really the star of the show- there are no spices or fancy additions- it is just an old fashioned, basic recipe. This will definitely be my go to banana cake/bread recipe from now on!