Almond Apricot Brown Sugar Bundt Cake, or, “Possibly the best cake I have ever had the privilege to consume…”

…at least that’s what my friend Adam says!

I’d baked it, along with a Carrot Cake, for a baby shower thrown for Adam and his wife Andrea last weekend. The Carrot Cake was a must as it had been requested by the mother-to-be, but I wanted to bring something else as well that would taste a little of winter and a little of spring and be appropriate for a Sunday at 2 p.m. kind of affair.
Recently I picked up a copy of Bundt Cake Bliss: Delicious Desserts from Midwest Kitchens by Susanna Short. I’ve always loved a good bundt cake: they’re easy to make, travel well, and tend to please many palettes.

History break*:
The Bundt Cake is a relatively new to the cake-scene. Along with her husband, Dotty Dalquist (who wrote the foreword to Bundt Cake Bliss), developed the Bundt pan for their NordicWare company at the request of two fundraising women looking for a pan similar to that used to bake the German coffeecake “bundkuchen.” With the help of an engineer, they designed the bundt pan we know and love. But, it wasn’t until Ella Helfrich and her 1966 Pillsbury Bake-Off winning recipe for the Tunnel of Fudge cake that the Bundt pan found it’s place in the kitchens of bakers across the country.

Browsing through the book I found a recipe for Apricot Almond Pound Cake that sounded really good but, I imagined, would be even better with some slight tweaking.
My adaptation...

Almond Apricot Brown Sugar Bundt Cake

Oven: 350 degrees
Butter and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan

Combine
2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
and set aside

Cream
1 c. softened butter
with
1 c. loosely packed light brown sugar
until smooth then beat in
3 eggs, 1 at a time
and
1 1/4 tsp. pure almond extract

Mix well, then grab a wooden spoon and do the same with the dry ingredients a cup or so at a time (I find that a wooden spoon and strong hands works best for thoroughly incorporating the drys).

Gently stir in
1 c. full-fat sour cream until you do not see any white sour cream streaks
followed by
3/4 c. apricot preserves, preferably all-fruit and filled with large pieces of apricot

Bake for 45 minutes or so until it's a lovely, deep nutty brown and the toothpick test comes out clean.

While you wait
toast 1 cup slivered almonds until golden and fragrant. Let cool

Once the cake it done, let it cool for about 5 minutes in the pan while you mix together
1/2 c. apricot preserves
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 cup water
in a small saucepan.

Bring to a boil and whisk until it's all combined. You should have a nice glaze of medium consistency. If it's too thick, add a little more water or lemon juice. If it's too thin, cook a bit longer.

Invert the warm cake onto a rack that's been placed on top of a baking sheet. With a thin knife or skewer, poke holes into the cake. Pour, brush or drip half of the glaze on to that cake. Sprinkle the toasted almonds onto the top of the cake, then seal it all with the rest of the glaze. Let cool completely, slice and serve.



It really was a wonderful cake, very moist and fragrant. The combination of textures between the dense cake, odd pieces of soft apricot and toothsome almonds was very pleasing. Not too sweet, it would work perfectly as a breakfast cake, but I could imagine it warmed up and served with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream as an after-dinner treat.

So that's the Bundt Cake. As for the Carrot Cake, I used the recipe in the More from Magnolia cookbook and got a nice, not-really-noteworthy but never-the-less pleasing cake.



I used the Cream Cheese frosting recipe also in the Magnolia book and it made far more icing than I needed to frost two 9 inch layers. What to do with the leftovers? I'll show you what I did next week...

On a final, fun note, this was a decorated onesie that shower-goer Mary made:




Baby cakes indeed.

*Summarized from Bundt Cake Bliss