Year of the Bundt

As military spouses, I know many of us are accustomed to moving all. the. time.

You get to a new place, you start to unpack your stuff, and then you open up a box that you haven’t looked at since the beginning of the last move and find a hidden gem in there…

Maybe it’s the butter dish that went missing four years ago, tightly wrapped in packing paper and tucked inside your old microwave (that happened).

Maybe it’s the top screw to your gorgeous bamboo paper towel holder, stuffed inside a trinkets box from when you lived overseas (yep, that also happened).

Maybe it’s your husband’s entire set of West Point beer steins and their glass pitcher, expertly wrapped but boxed in with old college textbooks (you betcha that happened).

Or maybe it’s an old Bundt cake cookbook, one that you’ve never even opened, but your kids find it and start to flip through it, exclaiming over every single recipe.. Well, when that happens, there’s only one thing to be done—you make a pledge then and there to pick out a Bundt and make one per month for an entire year.

OK, at the time I might have just watched that movie about the woman that cooked her way through Julia Child’s cookbook, but whatever. I was doing it. And listen, these weren’t your run-of-the-mill average Bundts—we’re talking award winners here, with fancy flavors, hard to find ingredients, and four-step processes to get the dang things in the oven.

If there was ever a time for my children to say to themselves, “Wow, Mom must really love us,” it was now.

So without further ado, here are the Bundts we made (in order):

• White Chocolate Limoncello
• Cookies and Cream
• Spiced Eggnog
• Irish Cream with Caramel Sauce
• Carrot Cake
• Raspberry Sour Cream
• Lavender Lemon with Blackberry Swirl
• Gather Round Pound
• Double Espresso Chocolate with Cappuccino Froth
• Toasted Coconut
• Honey Chai Spice
• Mocha Hazelnut Cheesecake
• Mango Buttermilk
• Dark Chocolate Caramel with Cream Cheese Filling

That, my friends, is a lot of Bundts (14 to be exact)! Each month I would literally find any reason to make a Bundt and take it to someone’s house, invited or uninvited.

Birthday? Bundt cake.

Tailgate? Bundt cake.

I like the color of your house? Bundt cake.

So yeah, lots of Bundts.

However, there are a few special ones that stick out in my mind for completely random reasons. And by the way, I am not a food photographer by any stretch of the imagination, so prepare yourselves to be very unimpressed with the photos you’re about to see.

What’s a better way to start than with the very first Bundt we tackled: the White Chocolate Limoncello, October 2016.

I made this one for an Army tailgate and learned two things.

Lesson Number One: it turns out that when I have to purchase hard liquor, I feel the need to explain to anyone and everyone that it’s for a cake.

Guys, I am 39 years old and have earned every single strand of my grey hair. No one is batting an eyelash when I’m purchasing liquor, and yet I still blushed and stammered like a schoolgirl doing something wrong. In other news, I’m ridiculous.

Lesson Number Two: This recipe included a mascarpone cream as a side, and my life will never be the same. I will make this cream, hide in another room, and just eat it by myself with a spoon.

Don’t judge me until you’ve tried it. Seriously.

The next favorite: Lavender Lemon with Blackberry Swirl, June 2017. Besides being picked out by my momma during her visit all the way from Oregon, which is pretty special in itself, this cake was my first foray into cooking with flowers!

And also, I realized that I had no idea where to actually get the afore-mentioned cooking flowers. After searching a couple of stores with no luck, I ended up calling my amazing friend, Emily (because she’s my go-to for crazy ingredients), and you betcha she had the cooking lavender! A short drive and 2 tsps later, we were back at the house cooking like champions.

An excellent Bundt, if I do say so myself.

Now, how could I have a favorite Bundt with my momma and not have a favorite Bundt with my sister? Her and her family visit us at every duty station, so of course, me being the best big sister ever, I let her pick that month’s cake.

Her choice? The Gather Round Pound, made in July 2017…

Urgh…

Honestly, this was the last cake I would have picked because it has coffee and butterscotch in it, two of my arch nemeses. I can’t stand either one of those flavors by themselves, but I couldn’t even imagine sticking them together and putting a bite in my mouth on purpose. But again, being the best big sister ever, I did it for her.

And it. Was. Amazing! Butterscotch and coffee mixed together make some new crazy flavor combination that doesn’t taste like the bottom of a shoe, which is what I expected it to be. Way to pick a winner, little sis!

Speaking of my arch nemesis, let me introduce you to the next Bundt that holds a special place in my heart: Double Espresso Chocolate with Cappuccino Froth, made in August 2017.

Now, why on earth would I choose to make a cake with espresso in literally every single aspect of it? From the cake flour having espresso granules and coffee liqueur, to the froth having more espresso granules, to the dang chocolate ganache being made with espresso chocolate bars, this cake is a coffee lovers dream—and my nightmare.

But, you know what? Not only was it my husband’s turn to pick the cake (he’s a coffee snob, to say the least), but we were in Iowa celebrating his parent’s farm being officially named to the Glidden Sesquicentennial Club, which means their homestead has been around for 150 years. If that doesn’t call for a fancy chocolate coffee cake to share with your husband’s family that all loves coffee, then I don’t know what does!

And, while I might not have eaten a single bite of that cake, but I bet you can guess what I made to go with it…

Yep. Mascarpone cream. Cue me hiding out in the bathroom with the mixing bowl and spoon.

Whew, we’re finally at the last one—can you believe it? Bringing up the rear is… (drumroll please…): Honey Spice Chai, made in November 2017.

Besides just being an awesome flavor combination with ingredients like chai tea (duh), evaporated milk, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger, this cake also was used for a very special occasion—my little man’s birthday!

Fun story about our son… he’s a Thanksgiving baby, destined to spend his life with birthdays revolving around turkey, pumpkin pie, stuffing, and cranberries. He’s also fairly certain that all the family and friends that come over for dinner are there solely to celebrate him, and he makes sure to ham it up appropriately.

For this birthday Bundt, he was only turning 2, so we stuck some candles in the cake, tossed on a little birthday sign, sang at the top of our lungs, and let him blow out the candles on his very sophisticated birthday cake. He’s happy as a clam, we get a fancy cake—it’s a win/win!

And before some of you jump on me for not making his day all about him, don’t worry—he’s almost 5 now, and there’s no way I’m getting out of a Paw Patrol or Toy Story celebration this year. Sigh. Goodbye, fancy cake.

So there you have it—a full year of Bundts! There’s actually still almost 20 cakes left in the cookbook, and my daughters have been asking when we’re going to start making them again. The good news? They’re old enough now to actually help.

Hmm… maybe it actually is time to break back out all of my fancy pans and get to baking again…

And in other news, if you want any of the recipes just let me know! I’m an excellent sharer. Well, unless it’s mascarpone cream.

Then it ain’t happenin’.