Maple Walnut Bundt Cake

Should perhaps rename this to Cinnabon cake! This is a really great cake to make when you have a house full of people, anyone at home would believe they are in Cinnabon if they close their eyes and breathe in deep while it bakes away in your oven and fills the house with those sweet notes of cinnamon and pecan. This great recipe comes from the amazing Nigella, from her book Kitchen, and is one of those recipes that just makes you feel uber happy when you are making it. It also tastes amazing, I made the mistake of making it while my husband was away for a week, and ended up eating the whole thing myself within a few short days…so I warn you now, its pretty darn good!

 

Ingredients
Pecan filling

• 75g plain flour
• 30g soft unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 150g pecans (or walnuts), roughly chopped
• 125ml maple syrup

Cake

• 300g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 125g soft unsalted butter
• 150g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 250ml crème fraîche or sour cream
• 1–2 teaspoons icing sugar, for decoration
• Flavourless oil, for greasing
• 1 x 23cm bundt tin

Directions

1 Preheat the oven to 180°C. Using flavourless oil (or a squirt of cooking spray) grease your bundt tin, and leave upside down on newspaper for the excess oil to drain out.

2 Make the filling for the cake by mixing together the 75g flour and 30g butter with a fork, till you end up with the sort of mixture you’d expect when making crumble topping. Then, still using the fork, mix in the cinnamon, chopped pecans (or walnuts) and maple syrup, to form a sticky, bumpy paste. Set aside for a moment.

3 For the cake, measure the 300g flour, the baking powder and bicarb into a bowl.

4 Now, cream the butter and sugar (i.e. beat well together until light in texture and pale in colour), then beat in 1 tablespoon of the flour mixture, then 1 egg, then another tablespoonful of flour mixture followed by the second egg.

5 Add the rest of the flour mixture beating as you go, and then finally the crème fraîche or sour cream. You should expect to end up with a fairly firm cake batter.

6 Spoon just more than half the cake batter into the oiled bundt tin. Spread the mixture up the sides a little and around the funnel of the tin to create a rim. You don’t want the sticky filling to leak out to the sides of the tin.

7 Dollop the maple filling carefully into the dent in the cake batter, then cover the filling with the remaining batter. Smooth the top and put the tin into the oven for 40 minutes, though it’s best to check with a cake tester after 30 minutes.

8 Once cooked, and the cake tester comes out clean where it hits the sponge (obviously, any gooey filling will stick to the tester), let the cake cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes in its tin, then loosen the edges with a small spatula, including around the middle funnel bit, and turn the cake out onto the rack.

9 When the cake is cold, dust with icing sugar by pushing a teaspoonful or so through a tea strainer.

Make ahead note
Can be baked up to 2 days ahead. Wrap tightly in clingfilm and store in airtight container. Dust with icing sugar just before serving.

Freeze note
The cake can be frozen, tightly wrapped in double layer of clingfilm and a layer of foil, for up to 3 months. Defrost overnight at room temperature and dust with icing sugar just before serving.

Makes 12 slices.