Stare into this swirling spiral vortex. That and a good hot cup of chamomile tea will make you very sleepy.
I love this bundt cake pan. It is a Nordic Ware pan from their Heritage Collection. I bought mine on Amazon here. (Full disclosure: Jeff Bezos and I are not close and Amazon doesn’t send me checks. Damn!)
When I was a little girl, I used to love the classic (and pretty benign) horror movies on TV. When I use this pan, it always reminds me of one of those films where the evil genius (maybe Karloff) urges the naive sweet young thing to stare deeply into the swirling vortex. It was the first time I had heard of hypnosis. I remember trying to stare into one of those little sticks with a swirling top (pinwheels) to see if I could be hypnotized. (I couldn’t but, believe me, I gave it a good try. Color me wild.)
Enough about the pan. This Cider and Five-Spice cake is very good and very unusual. It is a pungent spice cake. It is decidedly low on the sweetness meter. It has a good punch of ginger flavor and it incorporates a couple teaspoons of Chinese five-spice powder and one cup of cider. My French neighbor recommended a cider made with apples that is popular in Brittany and I used that for the cider in this recipe. Incidentally, I used a cider I bought at Trader Joe’s called Dan Armor. Served really cold, the cider also makes a refreshing and low-alcohol (5%) summer drink.
Here is the recipe.
Save RecipeIngredients
- 250 ml. cider (choose a dry not a sweet one)
- 175 ml. grapeseed oil (a neutral oil without a lot of flavor)
- 100 grams dark brown sugar
- 300 grams unsulfured molasses
- 3 large eggs
- 3 inch piece of peeled and grated fresh ginger root (about 2 t.)
- 300 grams plain flour
- 2 t. baking powder
- 1/4 t. baking soda
- 1/2 t. freshly-grated nutmeg
- 2 1/2 t. Chinese five-spice powder
- 1 1/2 t. ground cinnamon
- Nonstick spray or oil to grease your bundt pan.
- Garnish with powdered sugar, Ranier cherries, caramel sauce or French vanilla ice cream
Instructions
- Before starting your cake, uncap the cider and let it sit for a while to go flat.
- Prepare your pan by greasing it carefully. This bundt pan needs very careful oiling to ensure that your cake won't stick. You can also use non-stick cooking spray.
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Use a large bowl (I used the bowl of my KitchenAid mixer) to mix oil, brown sugar, and molasses. Add the cider, eggs, and ginger and beat until smooth.
- In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, 5-spice powder, and cinnamon. Add this dry flour mixture to the wet ingredients in the mixer bowl and mix until you have a smooth batter. Scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl a couple of times while you are mixing. The batter will be runny.
- Pour your batter into your prepared bundt pan. Bake on the center rack of your oven for 50-55 minutes or until a wooden tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean with just a few crumbs adhering to the tester.
- Cool cake on a wire rack for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, carefully remove the cake from the pan. (I carefully ran a knife around the funnel of the bundt pan.) Cool completely. This cake is better on day two when it has had time for the spices to marry. Wrap it and let it sit on your counter until the next day.
- I served this with powdered sugar. It is also very good with caramel sauce. It is pretty served with Ranier cherries in the center.
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This recipe was adapted from a Nigella Lawson recipe. You can find the original recipe here.
