English Toffee Bundt with Drunken Dulce Drizzle #BundtBakers

Fold bits of toffee candy into a batter rich with cream and deep brown sugar for a tender Bundt replete with caramel and love. Drizzle it lavishly with rum-spiked dulce de leche and you’ve got a full-blown love affair on a cake plate. 

Caramelicious deliciousness
I’m on deadline here, folks, because they are getting ready to turn my power off in a couple of hours – something about upgrading the system – and I’ve got to share this Bundt with you! So, no long story or introduction except to say that it’s BundtBaker time again and our host this month, the talented Lauren of Sew You Think You Can Cook has proclaimed Caramel as our theme.

Caramel comes in many forms but one of my favorites is caramelized condensed milk, otherwise known as dulce de leche. One of my others is toffee, which is basically sugar that’s been caramelized to which butter and/or cream is added. I love to make this candy for holiday gifts. I make it and wrap it and get it out of the house pronto, or I will eat it all, one shard at a time until it’s gone, gone, gone. So buttery, sweet, salty, nutty, in a word, fabulous. It’s kind of a homemade Almond Roca, but with bigger pieces of almond.


It’s not quite holiday gift giving season so I saved myself the calories and bought a box of Almond Roca to use in the cake, every gram of which went in or on the cake. Feel free to use homemade toffee, if you have some.

Ingredients
For the batter:
3 cups or 375g flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups or 300g dark brown sugar

1 1/2 cups  or 355ml whipping cream

3 eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup toffee candy, chopped, or 140g

For the drizzle:
3/4 cup or 240g dulce de leche
1 tablespoon dark rum
Good pinch salt

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your Bundt pan by greasing it generously with butter or non-stick spray. I’m not even kidding a little bit here. The toffee bits in the batter will melt and stick to your pan if you don’t. I coated mine once with the spray and put it in the refrigerator. Then, when I was ready to fill it, I took it out and gave it another coating of spray. Even so, one piece of toffee tried to stick up near the top, until I loosened it gently with a wooden skewer. You have been warned!

Sift your flour, baking powder, cocoa, baking soda and salt into a large bowl.

Use electric beaters or your stand mixer to beat the cream and brown sugar together for several minutes until the brown sugar is dissolved.

Add in the eggs, one at a time, and beat after each until well combined.

First egg going in. The brown sugar and cream mixture looks good enough to drink!

A few serving spoons at a time, add the flour mixture to the batter, beating well as you go along. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as well. When it’s all in, beat on high for two minutes.

Fold in about three-quarters of your toffee pieces, reserving one-quarter to decorate the Bundt after the glaze is added.

Pour into your prepared Bundt pan and bake for about one hour or until a wooden skewer comes out clean. If the top starts to darken too much before the center is done, cover it with a piece of foil.

It wasn't that full but, boy, howdy, did it rise while baking!

Allow the Bundt to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before turning over and out onto a cooling rack. Don’t leave it longer than this because you don’t want the toffee pieces inside to harden and stick to your pan.

Cool completely before attempting to drizzle on the glaze.

To make the glaze, add your one tablespoon of dark rum and the good pinch of salt to the dulce de leche. Stir with a fork or small whisk until the rum is completely incorporated. At first it looks like it’s not going to mix in but persevere.

When the Bundt is completely cool, drizzle on the spiked dulce. You will not use it all and that's okay. I have a plan for the balance.

Now stick on your reserved pieces of toffee.

Serve extra dulce de leche on the side in a shot glass. :)

Enjoy!

Check out all the fabulous caramel Bundts everyone has been baking this month!

• Apple Butter Bundt Cake with Cider Caramel Glaze by Cassie of Cassie's Kitchen
• Apple Pecan Bundt Cake with Caramel Glaze by Aisha of La Cocina de Aisha
• Belle Helene Bundt Cake by Jelena from A Kingdom for a Cake
• Brown Butter Praline Bundt Cake with Salted Caramel Drizzle by Tux of Brooklyn Homemaker
• Caramel Apple Bundt Cake by Kaylin of Keep it Simple, Sweetie
• Caramel Banana Bundt Cake by Kathya of Basic N Delicious
• Caramel Cake with Caramel Cream Cheese Icing by Rebekah of Making Miracles
• Caramel Chocolate Bundt Cake from Natalia of Principiando en la Cocina
• Chocolate Caramel Apple Bundt Cake by Lauren of Sew You Think You Can Cook
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake with Peanut Butter Caramel Sauce by Laura of Baking in Pyjamas
• Cornmeal Bundt Cake with Caramel Popcorn by Patricia of Patty's Cake
• English Toffee Bundt with Drunken Dulce Drizzle by Stacy of Food Lust People Love
• Fall Classic Caramel Bundt Cake by Maleka of La Luna en Dulce
• Fair Toffee Apple Bundt by Jane of Jane's Adventures in Dinner
• Milky Way Bundt Cake by Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Salted Caramelized White Chocolate Glazed Butterscotch Pecan Bundt Cake by Laura of The Spiced Life
• Snickers Bundt Cake with Caramel Glaze by Bea and Mara of I Love Bundt Cakes
• Spiced Apple Bundt Cake with a Caramel Brickle Drizzle by Teri of The Freshman Cook
• Spiced Caramel and Pear Bundt Cake by Rocío of Kids&Chic
• Three Flavor Zebra Bundt Cake - Vanilla, Caramel and Chocolate by Caro of En la Cocina de Caro

What is BundtBakers? 
#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme.  Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on the BundtBakers home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Would you like to join us? 
If you are a food blogger and would like to join us, just send an email with your blog URL to foodlustpeoplelove@gmail.com.

Toffee with Chocolate and Almond Slivers

Toasted almonds on the bottom, salted toffee in the middle and more almonds and semi-sweet chocolate on top. Break this apart like peanut brittle with a little hammer. Buttery, sweet and salty, and delicious. 

So, my house-hunting trip to Cairo was indeed canceled.  We had been blessed by an invitation to share Thanksgiving with a family there on Friday and I was planning to make this to bring, to share, since I wouldn’t have a proper kitchen in the serviced apartment.  I decided to make it anyway, because, so rich are my blessings, I have been graced with another invitation to share Thanksgiving here in Kuala Lumpur.  Since I have an actual kitchen and oven, I will also make an apple pie.  And green beans, just like my grandmothers used to make, to bring as well.

May you all be blessed richly with friends and family who love you this Thanksgiving.  I am firmly convinced there is no greater blessing than friends and family who love you!  I am more grateful than I can express.  Surely, I do not have my family with me, but they are safe and I hope that they also know how much they are loved by me and how much I wish we could be together. 

Ingredients

2 rounded cups or 300g of slivered almonds

2 cups or 450g unsalted butter

3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 cups or 450g sugar

1/8 cup or 30ml light corn syrup

1/3 cup or 80ml water

1 1/2 rounded cups or 290g semi-sweet chocolate chips

Method

Toast the almond slivers in a dry non-stick frying pan over a medium heat.  Stir or toss them frequently to make sure they brown evenly. 

It's hard to see how toasted these are but they were darker than the photo makes them appear. 

Line a baking pan with sides  (minimum 15 1/2in x10 1/2in or 40cm x 27cm) with foil.  Butter the foil liberally.

Sprinkle half of the toasted almonds on the foil.

Ah, see! They look more toasted in the natural light.

In a heavy saucepan, add butter, salt, sugar, corn syrup, and water. Cook over medium-high heat.

Cook the mixture until it reaches 290-300 degrees using a candy thermometer, which is the soft crack stage. Be really careful at this step, at 280 it goes really fast, and can burn in mere seconds. 

Pour the mixture immediately over the almonds. Set a timer for five minutes and let it cool until it is firm but still hot.

Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the toffee.  Set your timer for two minutes and, when it rings, spread the chocolate all over the toffee.

Sprinkle with remaining toasted almond slivers.  Chill in the refrigerator until it hardens completely.

Peel the toffee off of the foil and turn it over.  Gently break it into pieces with a small hammer. 

Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container, with waxed or parchment paper between the layers.  Or serve immediately!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who is celebrating this weekend!

Adapted from this recipe, but originally from Pinterest and The Idea Room.  I tried to find the original post on Pinterest but I don’t really understand how it works, I guess.