cake slice bakers: cinnamon pudding cake

cinnamon pudding cake with pumpkin ice cream and candied walnuts

I'm a Cake Slice Baker Virgin no longer! Oooooohhhhh yeeeeeeaaaa........

Cake Slice Bakers (CSB for short, hollah!) is great because once a month, a group of bakers all over the world help each other out making something from a cookbook. At the moment the book of choice is Cake Keeper Cakes by Lauren Chattman and this Cinnamon Pudding Cake is not only the first I’ve made with CSB but also the first I’ve made from the book.

The cake is a cinnamon flavoured cake covered in a brown sugar caramel sauce (in a kinda upside-down cake way). If made correctly, it's moist and comforting and downright delish. 

The first time I made this cake I screwed it up royally. I was in a hurry and threw the mix, including 3 cups of thin caramel sauce, into a 9 inch pan with a removable base. Oh boy.

I'm embarrassed to say I only realised my mistake when, 10 minutes in the oven, I smelled caramel sauce burning on the bottom of the oven. That's when I thought, "What would Tim Gunn do?"

I MADE. IT. WORK.

I shovelled/poured the cake into an 8inch (without holes in the bottom) pan and threw it back into the oven. I thought I had a disaster on my hands but when it was done, it was moist and covered in a lovely caramel and just delicious!

I know a few of my fellow CSB-ers had issues with the dreaded dryness so I recreated my fortunate mistake. Frankly, I'm writing up my version because the original recipe is unreliable and I reckon my changes fix it. My changes make it amazing and moist and pudding-ey and easy-peasy and something I can NOW rely on.

I've got a couple of nice photos of the perfected cake but it'll take me a couple of days to load them up because I use old-fashioned film for my photos and they need to be developed.



Hmmm now that I've loaded this pic, I'm thinking it looks a little suggestive of something else... Heck, what with this picture and my mention of the 'V' word, I have a horrible feeling that this blog is soon going to become R-rated. My mother would be so proud.



fixed cake about to be demolished



Fixed Cinnamon Pudding Cake

Adapted from Cake Keeper Cakes

For the caramel sauce
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon	light brown sugar, packed
1 cup	water
1 tablespoon	unsalted butter
½ teaspoon	salt
For the cake
2 cups	all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons	baking powder
3 teaspoons	ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon	salt
2 tablespoons	unsalted butter, softened
1 cup	white sugar
1 cup	whole milk
1 teaspoon	vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F/180C and grease an 8 inch round cake pan*.

To make the sauce

Combine caramel ingredients in a saucepan and heat on a medium-low heat until sugar melts, stirring occassionally. Bring the sauce to a boil and then set aside.

To make the cake

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat butter and white sugar until creamy. Because there is so little butter, the mixture will be very grainy and not a typical creamy mixture. Fold in a third of the flour mix and then half of the milk. Fold in another third of the flour, the rest of the milk, and then the last of the flour. Add the vanilla and 1/4 cup of the caramel sauce and gently combine.

Pour 1/4 cup of the caramel into the baking pan. Pour the cake mixture into the pan and gently smooth over the caramel. Pour the rest of the caramel over the cake. The sauce will make holes in the cake and bits of cake will float up but don't worry - carefully smooth the cake through the sauce as much as you can.

Put cake in the oven and bake until a cake tester comes out just clean, about 40 to 50 minutes. Don't overcook!

Cool the cake on a cake rack for 15 minutes then invert onto a platter. Caramel sauce will pour out so make sure your platter has raised sides. Wait another 5 minutes if you want the sauce to thicken a little. Serve warm.

The cake is best eaten just made but can be kept, covered, for 3 days in the fridge.

*This cake will rise a bit so make sure your pan has high sides. If your pan isn't high enough, swap with a wider pan. The pan I used had sides nearly 3 inches high and the cake rose to the very top.