Bready or Not: Cardamom Bundt Cake with Coffee Glaze
It’s June and hey, let’s eat cake! Cardamom Cake with Coffee Glaze. A bundt cake full of sugar and glory and cardamom-y goodness.
I read a lot of books. I also read a lot of magazines. One of my favorite things to do is hit up a good used book store or library book sale and buy stacks of older food magazines to raid for recipes.
That’s how I found the original recipe for this in an October 2013 issue of Country Living. I modified it, removing pistachios and tweaking here and there, and created a cake that earned the utter adoration of my husband’s co-workers.
Coffee and cardamom is a fantastic flavor combination. You might remember the Cardamom Coffee Pound cake I posted last fall. This bundt cake is like that awesome loaf cake, and so much more.
It’s bigger, for one, being a full-size cake. It has a kinda pound cake thing going, too. The sour cream does miraculous thing for cake texture, creating crumb that is dense, not crumbly.
This is a cake you can eat out of hand, no saucer required. And you’ll want to lick your fingers clean, too, because the glaze includes espresso powder (one of my favorite ingredients to keep around) and sugar.
If the caffeine doesn’t boost your day, you know the sugar will!
Bready or Not: Cardamom Bundt Cake with Coffee Glaze
Ingredients
Bundt cake
- 1 cup unsalted butter 2 sticks, room temperature, plus more to grease pan
- dried breadcrumbs fine texture, to dust pan
- cooking spray
- 2 1/3 cups cake flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 1/2 cups white sugar
- 4 large eggs room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup sour cream 8 ounces
Coffee glaze
- 2/3 cup confectioners' sugar sifted
- 1 teaspoon espresso powder
- 1/4 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 Tablespoon milk or half & half, plus more if needed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Generously butter a 10 or 12-cup Bundt pan. Dust the pan with fine bread crumbs; a toasted and pulverized half heel of bread will do. Apply cooking spray over the bread crumbs.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cardamom, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
- In a large bowl, use a mixer on medium to beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time followed by the vanilla extract, beating until very pale yellow.
- Reduce the mixer speed and alternate between adding the flour mix and the sour cream into the butter blend.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan, using a rubber spatula. Bake cake until a wooden toothpick inserted into the cake comes out dry with only a few moist crumbs attached, 45 to 50 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool for 30 minutes, then invert cake onto rack to completely cool. Once cool, move cake to cake plate and prepare glaze.
- Whisk together sugar, espresso powder, and cocoa powder. Add milk and stir, adding more milk as needed until glaze is just thin enough to drizzle. Dribble over cake.
- OM NOM NOM!
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Bready or Not: Snickerdoodle Biscotti
Brace yourself: I’ve been experimenting with biscotti, and this Snickerdoodle version is the first of several you’ll see this year!
Yes, these really do taste like Snickerdoodles, only in a crisper, more dunk-able form. I even added cream of tartar to the recipe, to amp up the Snickerdoodliness. (That should totally be a word.)
For years, I have said that I dislike biscotti. That’s because the only kind I ever tried came from the grocery store, and it was HARD. Like, “this could break my teeth,” hard. It didn’t help that I don’t drink coffee and therefore had nothing to dip the biscotti into to soften it.
Then the Great British Bake Off featured biscotti and my interest was piqued. The bakers made it look easy. Doable. And the fresh version was supposed to be crisp, not teeth-shatteringly hard.
I hunted down some recipes. I started baking. I discovered, once again, that the Great British Bake Off abounds in wisdom. Homemade biscotti is easy and tasty.
These Snickerdoodle Biscotti are fantastic for Snickerdoodle lovers. The cinnamon-sugar top makes these even look and smell like the cookie version, and the flavor….!
Oh yeah. Snickerdoodliness.
Because these are biscotti, they keep well for a few weeks, too. That makes these great to stash away or to even ship across distances.
And even if they go stale, I bet you they are still a million times better than the grocery store version.
Modified from Brown Eyed Baker.
Bready or Not: Snickerdoodle Biscotti
Ingredients
biscotti
- 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter 1 stick, room temperature
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup cinnamon chips
topping
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375-degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, cinnamon, baking powder, cream of tartar, and salt.
- In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl often. Add the eggs, one at a time, followed by the vanilla. Gradually add the dry ingredients, mixing just until a dough forms. Finally, mix in the cinnamon chips.
- Divide the dough in half on the prepared baking sheet. Form each into a log about 4 inches wide and 10 inches long; make sure there is space between the two logs, as they'll grow in the oven.
- Mix together the topping ingredients and sprinkle over both dough logs.
- Bake about 25 minutes, until the biscotti is lightly browned with small cracks forming across the top. Remove the baking sheet from the oven, but be sure to leave the oven on.
- Let the biscotti cool for 10 minutes. Use a large knife, such as a bread knife, to diagonally slice the logs 1/2-inch apart. Use a straight-down motion to cut; don't saw.
- Arrange the biscotti spaced out on the baking sheet. Stand them up if possible, or lay them on their sides. Bake for another 15-20 minutes, flipping them over halfway if necessary, to equally crisp both sides.
- Cool completely on the baking sheet. Store in an airtight container as long as a few weeks.
- OM NOM NOM!
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Bready or Not: Pride O’ Scotland Shortbread
The day after my anniversary, it seems only right to share the shortbread recipe I made for my husband the first day we met: Pride O’ Scotland Shortbread.
The original recipe is from one of my mom’s very battered cookbooks, which she gave to me a few years ago. The pages tenuously cling to the spiral binding. Back when I was a teenager, this shortbread recipe was one of the first I really declared ‘mine.’
Back in those dark ages before widespread internet shopping and Cost Plus World Market, my family was only able to obtain shortbread once or twice a year–at the Fresno Highland Games, and maybe at Christmas. Those red boxes of Walker’s Shortbread brought us great joy.
So when I found this recipe and my relatives declared that my shortbread was BETTER than Walker’s brand… whoa. I felt like I’d made something magical.
Maybe I did. It helped snare me a husband, after all.
Bready or Not: Pride O' Scotland Shortbread
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cups white sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter 2 sticks, softened
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 375-degrees. Grease two 9-inch pie pans.
- Place dry ingredients in mixing bowl; add butter, egg yolk, and vanilla. Mix with fingers until dough holds together. Divide dough into two balls and press each ball into a pan. Flatten evenly with palms; prick surface all over with floured fork. Slash into wedges.
- Bake for 17 to 22 minutes, until the edges are golden brown. Remove from oven. Immediately cut again following slash marks and carefully run the blade around the edge of the crust to loosen the shortbread.
- Let shortbread cool. Cut again along slash marks and the crust, then remove wedges to eat. Shortbread keeps in sealed container for several days.
- OM NOM NOM!
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Bready or Not: Maple BBQ Chicken Tenders
It has come to my attention that I haven’t featured a maple recipe since March. So let’s remedy that with a meaty recipe for from-scratch Maple Barbecue Chicken.
Yep, you create your own BBQ sauce for this recipe! It’s full of maple goodness with just the right balance of savory-sweet. You divvy up the sauce, using some to marinate the meat and reserving the rest for eating time.
Use this base recipe to cook the chicken however you want. Grill it. Roast it in your oven. Whatever gets the meat cooked and chewed and in your belly.
Maple makes everything better, right?
Modified from A Dash of Sanity.
Bready or Not: Maple BBQ Chicken Tenders
Ingredients
- 3 - 4 pounds chicken tenders
- 1/2 cup brown sugar packed
- 1 cup ketchup
- 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/3 cup pure maple syrup
- 1 Tablespoon Worchester sauce
- 2 teaspoons ground mustard
- 2 teaspoons paprika
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Place the chicken tenders in a sturdy gallon sealable bag. In a bowl, mix together all of the other ingredients. Pour enough of the sauce into the bag to coat the chicken; reserve the rest of the sauce for serving later. (If the sauce gets contaminated by the raw meat, boil it to make sure it's safe to eat.)
- Let the chicken marinate in the fridge for anywhere from 2 hours to a day.
- Heat up your grill [or, alternatively, bake it in your oven]. Grill the chicken at medium heat for 4 minutes, then turn to cook another 4 minutes, and longer as needed. Check for doneness by testing the temperature in a thick section; it should be at least 170-degrees.
- Serve immediately. Chicken is fantastic hot or cold, and can be frozen with sauce for later enjoyment, too.
- OM NOM NOM!
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Bready or Not: Oatmeal Cream Pies
Today I present something seriously delicious: Oatmeal Cream Pies, aka Sandwich Cookies.
These things are about the size of a sandwich, too, and about as filling because of the chewy oatmeal cookies. You have two tablespoons worth of dough with a teaspoon of marshmallow cream between them. So yeah.
I don’t think I’d make smaller cookies, though, for sheer reasons of space and time. The recipe makes over four dozen cookies, which makes for over two dozen sandwich cookies. This is a recipe to make for a lot of hungry adults or kids!
If you love commercial-made cream pies like the ones from Little Debbie, these homemade ones will blow your mind. They have that same taste and texture, but with some extra chewy freshness.
I highly advise that you use tablespoon and teaspoon scoops for this recipe, too. It helps a lot if the cookies are of uniform size and that the amount of filling is equally distributed.
Modified from Taste of Home.
Bready or Not: Oatmeal Cream Pies
Ingredients
Cookies:
- 1 1/2 cups shortening
- 2 2/3 cups brown sugar packed
- 4 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
Filling:
- 3/4 cup shortening
- 3 cups confectioners' sugar sifted
- 7 oz marshmallow creme 1 jar
- 1 - 3 Tablespoons milk or half & half
Instructions
- Preheat the oven at 350-degrees. In a large bowl, cream together the shortening and brown sugar until they are light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract.
- In another bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and nutmeg; gradually add this dry mix to the creamed mix. Stir in oats. If you're using a stand mixer, you'll probably need to stir the last of the oats in by hand. This is a lot of dough!
- Use a tablespoon scoop to dole out the dough onto a cookie sheet, keeping two inches between each spoonful. These will spread.
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes; they brown very fast, so keep an eye on them at the end. Remove them when they are turning golden brown. Let sit on cookie sheet for 10 minutes before transitioning them to a rack to cool.
- To make the filling, start by sifting the confectioners' sugar into a large bowl. Add the shortening and marshmallow crème. Add a tablespoon of milk and gradually add more as needed to get it to spreadable consistency. Use a heaping teaspoon to dollop filling onto the base of a cookie. Spread it with a knife, top with another cookie, and press together to get cream to the edges.
- End result: about 30 large sandwich cookies.
- OM NOM NOM!
Bready or Not: Stuffed Churro Nuggets
With Cinco de Mayo two days away, let’s revisit a classic Holy Taco Church recipe: Stuffed Churro Nuggets.
This recipe is EASY. It uses store-bought puff pastry. (I mean, you can use a homemade version, but even the great Mary Berry of the Great British Bake Off says she prefers the store kind.) I haven’t tried it with gluten-free puff pastry, but I know that it exists; if anyone uses that with this recipe, let me know how it turns out!
You can choose whatever filling you want. I like to make this and fill half with Nutella and half with Dulce de Leche, but you could try this with any kind of thick, spreadable delicious stuff.
Maybe try peanut or other nut butters? Or maple butter? (OOOOOOOOH.) But trust me, you can’t go wrong with Nutella and Dulce de Leche (and if you can find the squeeze bottle Dulce de Leche, it’s especially convenient).
These nuggets are best eaten the same day, but if you take this to any sizable gathering, that won’t be a problem. These are a perfectly-sized hors d’oeuvres, and I doubt that anyone will have just one!
Bready or Not: Stuffed Churro Nuggets
Ingredients
Nuggets
- 1/2 package puff pastry 1 bag out of a 2 pack box
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter 1/2 stick
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
Choose your stuffing! One of these or something else
- Nutella
- Dulce de leche squeeze bottle, can, etc
Note that if your filling is stiff, you can make it more spreadable with a zap in the microwave. Make sure you do so in a microwave-safe container.
Instructions
- Let puff pastry come to room temperature. Preheat oven at 425-degrees.
- Get out a large cookie sheet and line it with parchment paper. Unfold puff pastry onto the surface and use a pizza cutter to quickly cut the dough into 1-inch cubes.
- Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until the squares are puffed and golden.
- Set out whatever will be used to stuff the nuggets. Mix together the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. In another bowl, melt the butter.
- Remove the puff pastry from the oven. Pop open each cube by removing the top completely or opening it as if on a hinge--it's surprisingly easy, with those flaky layers--and add a dab of filling. Close the pastry, then roll it in butter and then in cinnamon-sugar.
- Churro Nuggets are best eaten the same day. Store them in a sealed container, with parchment or waxed paper between layers.
- OM NOM NOM!
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