Upside-down Apricot Butter Bundt #BundtBakers

Baking an upside-down cake in a Bundt pan is not for the fainthearted. But with lots of butter in the caramel and in the batter, it can be done! 

This month the Bundt Bakers are celebrating stone fruit. Things like peaches, apricots and plums or cherries and nectarines, in fact anything with a hard stone or pit in the middle, so even avocados would qualify. This great theme was chosen by Felice of All That’s Left are the Crumbs but unfortunately, she was unable to host this month, so I’ve stepped in. We miss you, Felice, and are all wishing you well!

We can get beautiful apricots here in Dubai, but they aren’t the sweetest so I decided to use canned ones for the cake. If you have sweet fresh apricots, by all means, substitute. The cake batter is a simple buttery pound cake, spooned into the caramelized sugar Jamie Oliver uses for his apricot tarte tatin, which is one of my favorite desserts to make. Although I usually leave the pistachios off. Must share that one soon too.

Ingredients
For the cake:
1 pound or 450g unsalted butter, plus more for pan
1 pound or 450g sugar
5 eggs
3 cups or 375g all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup or 240ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the “upside down” caramelized apricots:
3 1/2 oz or 100g sugar
2 tablespoons water
5 tablespoons or 1/3 cup or 70g unsalted butter, diced
1 can (14 1/2 oz or 410g) apricots in syrup, well drained

Method
In a small skillet, cook your sugar and water over a low to medium heat until it starts to brown. Watch it carefully the whole time! You do not want this to burn, just to caramelize. When it gets a nice medium brown, take the skillet off the stove and add in the butter.

Stir vigorously but don’t splash yourself! That stuff is hot.

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and butter and flour your Bundt pan thoroughly.

Mix your flour, salt and baking powder together in a bowl and set aside.

With a mixer, cream butter and sugar together in another bowl. Add the eggs to the creamed butter, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

First egg and fluffy butter creamed with sugar

By the time the last egg goes in, it may look a little curdled but don't that alarm you. Now add the dry ingredients alternately with milk, starting with the flour and ending with the flour, mixing well after each addition.

Mix in the vanilla extract.

Pour your caramelized sugar and butter mixture into the prepared Bundt pan.  If it has started to harden up, you can warm it again very gently - just until it will pour - but you don't want it too hot.

That's a lot of butter in there. No way this can stick! Just keep repeating that.

Gently lay the drained apricots, round side down, in the caramel.

Spoon the batter carefully into the pan, first on top of the apricots so they stay down and then all around them. Keep spooning the batter until it is all in the pan. If you pour, you risk dislodging the apricots.

Smooth out the top and bake for 65-75 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

If you are a thermometer-using type, according the King Arthur Flour website, the internal temperature should be about 200°F or 93°C when a pound cake is done.

It looks a bit funny around the edges because the caramel bubbled up as it baked.
You can still see a little caramel there on the right. It soaks into the cake as it starts to cool.

Cool on a wire rack for at least 10-15 minutes before turning out. I wouldn’t leave it any longer though because you don’t want the caramelized sugar to harden again and stick to the pan. There is no sound more beautiful to a Bundt baker than that gentle thud of a cake turning loose.

Enjoy!

Do you love baking with stone fruit? We’ve got a great bunch of recipes for you this month!

• All-American Chocolate Cherry Pie Cake from Lauren at So You Think You Can Cook
• Black Forest Bundt Cake with Cherry Ganache Topping from Teri at The Freshman Cook 
• Caramel Mango Bundt Cake from Bea at Secrets from My Apron
• Cherry Almond Ginger Bundt from Jane at Jane’s Adventures in Dinner 
• Cherry Carrot & Banana Bundt from Kelly at Passion Kneaded 
• Cherry Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake from Renee at Magnolia Days 
• Chocolate Avocado Bundt Cake from Terri at Love and Confections 
• Cinnamon Peach Bundt Cake from Bea and Mara at I Love Bundts 
• Peaches n Cream Melba Bundt Cake from Laura at Baking in Pyjamas 
• Peachy Bundt from Margaret at Tea and Scones 
• Plum, Chocolate and Orange Bundt Cake by Maria at Box of Stolen Socks 
• Roasted Cherry Kugelhopf with Cherry Bourbon Glaze by Tux from Brooklyn Homemaker
• Upside-down Apricot Butter Bundt from Stacy at Food Lust People Love

#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.

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

Coffee Ice Cream #IceCreamTuesday

Coffee ice cream is the perfect blend of sweet and strong, especially this one from the master of all-things-coffee, Patricia McCausland-Gallo and her book, Passion for Coffee.

 

The summer I was eight, my family moved from Trinidad to Caracas, Venezuela. We lived for a little while in a hotel while we waited for our rental house to be ready for move in. It became a ritual for my mom to take us for a treat each afternoon at a nearby pastelería that also served ice cream. She could get a café con leche and my sisters and I would get ice cream. I always chose coffee. Always. I am not much of a sweet eater, despite all the baking that goes on around here, but coffee ice cream is my all-time favorite.

Last week I shared a savory recipe - Rump Steak with Wine-Balsamic Coffee Glaze

from Patricia’s wonderful coffee-centric book with the promise of the coffee ice cream soon and here it is! 

Reprinted with permission. Metric conversions are my own. Any adaptations are in parentheses. The method is rewritten in my own words with some modifications.

Ingredients for 1 hefty pint or about 2 1/3 cups of ice cream
1 1/2 cups or 355ml heavy cream
1 1/2 cups or 355ml 2% milk
2/3 cup or 130g granulated sugar
1/4 cup or 50g brown sugar
3 egg yolks (I used four by accident.)
2 tablespoons instant coffee granules (I used espresso powder.)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Equipment needed:
Ice cream maker

Method
Whisk the cream, milk, brown sugar, white sugar, egg yolks, coffee, and salt together in a large heavy-bottomed pot, off the stove.

Put it on the stove and cook over the mixture over a medium heat, stirring constantly, until you are sure the brown sugar has dissolved and the mixture has thickened. This takes about seven or eight minutes.

Remove from the pot from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract.

Add ice and some water to a large bowl and set another bowl inside of it.

Strain your thickened mixture into the inside bowl and stir until it is cool.

Cover the surface of the mixture with cling film and refrigerate until it is completely cold.

Transfer your mixture to an ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer's instructions.

When the ice maker is done, put the ice cream into an airtight container and put it in the freezer.

Freeze to desired hardness and serve. For best consistency, freeze overnight.

Enjoy!

Pin this Coffee Ice Cream! 

Or check out her inspired ice cream today. It's made with Crème Brûlée Stout!

Plus, my friend, Kirsten from Comfortably Domestic, has a low fat option today: Strawberry Colada Frozen Yogurt. Isn't the color just gorgeous?!

Fresh Rhubarb Muffins for #MuffinMonday

Fresh rhubarb is tart and wonderful in baked goods, from pies to crumbles to muffins. These will start your morning off right! 

Twenty-one years ago today, we were enjoying a warm summer day in Paris and the festivities of the Bastille Day holiday, counting down the days to the scheduled caesarean section that would bring our second daughter into the world. Since she was being born in France, I had tried to convince the doctor that Le Quatorze Juillet would be an appropriate day for her birthday, so we could celebrate her and La Belle France every year with fireworks, picnics and overhead aerial displays. But he wasn’t having any of it, the party pooper. What’s the point of being able to choose your child’s birthday if you can’t pick a fun date, right? As it turns out, we moved away from Paris before she turned two years old so the 14th of July lost significance in our daily lives. But it still comes to mind every year as we prepare to celebrate our daughter's birthday.

Reminiscing about Paris also makes me think of rhubarb. I’ve told the story briefly here, about the late discovery of rhubarb in our Paris garden. Ever since that time, I’ve made every effort to take advantage of it when I see it in my market or nearby grocery store. Rhubarb is the best and it’s one of our favorite things.

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
3/4 cup or 150g sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup or 160ml canola or other light oil
3/4 cup or 180ml buttermilk (or almost 3/4 cup milk plus 2 teaspoons vinegar)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup or 130g chopped fresh rhubarb

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C.  Put liners in the muffin cups or grease them well with butter or non-stick spray.

Cut your rhubarb into pieces, about 1cm or 1/2 inch wide. Set aside the prettiest 12 for decorating the tops before baking.

Whisk together your flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.

Add caption

Whisk together the canola, buttermilk, vanilla and eggs in another bowl, until combined well.

Add caption

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined. There should be a little dry flour still showing. Gently fold in your sliced rhubarb.

Divide the batter among the muffin cups.   Decorate each with a pink piece of rhubarb.

Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean, about 20 to 25 minutes.

Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Add caption

Enjoy! To my French friends, I also say, Bonne Fête Nationale!

And a very happy birthday to my good friend, Margaret, who does indeed share a birthday with France. I'm sure the fireworks are just for you, MJ!

Two more rhubarb recipes for your enjoyment! 

Rhubarb Nectarine Puff Pastry Tarts

Not the prettiest, but this one is delicious and easy!

Rhubarb Apple Ginger Crumble