Mini-Bundt Cakes Make Christmas Merry: Pantry Ingredients Yield Holiday Cakes Perfectly Sized For Dessert Or Gift-Giving
Sales of fresh-cut Christmas trees have skyrocketed this year as folks create an oasis of comfort and calm during this unprecedented Holiday season. While airports and highways will undoubtedly still be crowded with travelers, my husband Randy and I will celebrate a quiet, but festive Christmas with my Mom at Swan's Nest.
As we do every year, we'll cut a fresh spruce tree on our property. We selected this year's tree in September, weeks before the first snowfall. While inspecting trees, our conversation follows a familiar pattern each year. RANDY: (moments after we walk into the forest) "How about this one"? CHRISTY: "I don’t like that one. The branches are too thin around the bottom". RANDY: (after hiking further up the hillside) "This one looks good!" CHRISTY: "It's too short. It'll look tiny under our 14-foot ceiling. I like this one!". RANDY: "Do you realize how tall that tree is? I’d have to cut half the length in order to stand it up in the living room". Ultimately, we come to an agreement, Randy grabs the hand saw, and I hold the tree while he cuts. Then we carry it home through the snow, he makes the final cut, and we move it into the house.
This year, as a fire crackles and glows in the hearth and carols play in the background, Mom will help us decorate the tree. I'll open a bottle of wine, set out a charcuterie board and a plate of Christmas cookies to keep us fortified, and we'll spend the evening unpacking ornaments, hanging them on fragrant branches, and reminiscing on Christmases past.
Like so many households, our 2020 celebration will be smaller, so my traditional Christmas dessert buffet will have to wait for another year. Instead, I'm going to serve individual mini-cakes that are guaranteed to end our Christmas dinner-for-three on a high note. With my mother in residence for the winter, I'm limiting my early-morning grocery runs to once every two weeks, so I'm relying on my pantry more than ever. Today's recipe for Molasses Mini-Bundt Cakes is perfectly sized for smaller gatherings. At the same time, when individually wrapped in cellophane, they're impressive gifts for friends and neighbors. Best of all, they're baked from ingredients common to most pantries, so there's no need to run to the store. Similar in flavor to gingerbread, these diminutive cakes can make Christmas a little more merry and memorable for everyone.
Wishing you a Merry and Blessed Christmas!
-Christy
Molasses Mini Bundt Cake
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup molasses
- 1 egg
- 1 1/4 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 1/2 cup milk
- 6-mold mini-Bundt cake pan
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In the large bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter with sugars until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add molasses and egg, and beat well.
In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg. Gradually add the flour mixture, alternately with the milk, to the creamed mixture to form a thick batter.
Spray mini-Bundt cake molds with nonstick cooking spray with flour. Spoon the batter into the molds, filling each half full. Bake 20 to 22 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the cakes comes out clean. Remove the pan from the oven and cool 25 minutes. Place a rack over the pan, turn it over, and tap the bottom of each mold to release the cakes. Cool cakes completely.
Yield: 6 mini Bundt cakes