It Must Be Sunday

I know I named this blog Spatulas at Dawn because of my early starts and love of filling the small hours with the smell of baking, but I really think that a 4 am start in November is taking things a little too far. Dawn was still several hours away when sat with coffee and recipe books I tried to decide which cake to bake in honour of National Bundt Day which is celebrated on the 15th November in the US.

I love my Bundt cake tin (and I'm hoping that Father Christmas might be able to fit another in my stocking this year - are you reading this Ces?) and rarely need an excuse to use it. As I mentioned the other day Mary, The Food Librarian, set herself the challenge of baking a bundt cake every day for the month leading up to National Bundt Day and I had a tin of pumpkin puree (thank you Waitrose) set aside for the day itself. After all, what could be a more fitting ingredient for this most American of bakeware than pumpkin? I already had my eye on a recipe for a Pumpkin and Chocolate bundt from the list on The Food Librarian's site and my newest of books Cake Keeper Cakes (as recommended by Nicole at Baking Bites) had an almost identical one for a loaf cake. The average 9" by 5" loaf tin recipe can be doubled to fill a bundt so that's what I did - see below. The original recipe called for milk but I used buttermilk and I also reduced the sugar slightly. Apologies for the mixture of measurments in US cups and metric, with some ingredients it's easier to measure out in the original cups so I didn't bother weighing to get the equivalent measure, sorry if that's irritating, but it was early!

The resulting cake is so moist from the pumpkin and moorish with the differing textures I'm not sure how to do it justice here and hope that you give it a try soon.

Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake

adapted from Cake Keeper Cakes by Lauren Chatman

• 300g plain flour
• 2 tsp bicarb
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• generous pinch of nutmeg
• 225g unsalted butter
• 200g caster sugar
• 6 large eggs
• one 15oz can of unsweetened pumpkin puree
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup buttermilk
• 2 cups chocolate chips (I used a mixture of milk chocolate chips and chopped 70% Green and Blacks)
• 2 cups of chopped walnuts

• Preheat oven to 180C, grease your bundt tin and dust with flour
• Mix flour, spices, bicarb, baking powder and salt
• Beat sugar and butter until fluffy then add eggs one at a time, scraping the side of the bowl as needed
• Stir in pumpkin and vanilla then the buttermilk
• Add the flour in three batches, scraping the side of the bowl and then finally stir in the chocolate and walnuts
• Pour batter into the bundt tin of your choice and bake for 55 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean, cool in tin for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wore rack. Allow to cool completely before attempting to cut

Should your bundt be reluctant to release itself from the tin (as mine was today as I forgot the all important 'dust with flour' step) pop the tin back into the oven for a few minutes to help release it (you may also require the help of several implements to aid the process, I used a knife, a rolling pin, a plastic spatula and a bit of brute force)