Cinnamon Roll Bundt Cake.

Wow, Rach, two posts in a week. Good for you! Haha Food is clearly my muse and I love writing and sharing about it. My last post about the amazingly tasty refried pinto beans was a huge hit for you guys! Lots of "OMG I'm making this immediately!" Very flattering. I kept checking the post itself to make sure I had no typos and my instructions were clear enough. Haha

Ok, let's get to the point! You read the title of this post, you know what's about to happen. The saliva is accumulating in your cheeks. You're ready. I'm ready. Let's talk about it! Cinnamon Roll Bundt Cake. 

Yeah that's right! You heard me! All the lovely things you have ever wanted in a delicious, warm, ooey gooey roll, but like half the effort. No waiting for the dough to rise, no rolling out the dough, smearing the melted butter around, rising the dough... again... Well, that or buying a tube of it in the grocery store next to the sour cream and tater tots. But let's be honest here, nothing beats a big fluffy homemade roll. Except this cake. OMG.

I was sifting through the pages of Pinterest months back when I found this recipe. What attracted me to it was the "Bundt" part of it. My dad had just bought a pan a few weeks prior and I was waiting for the right recipe to break it in... and boy did I find it! 

The blog was called Bake Or Break. The lady that writes for it said that she found the recipe on King Arthur's cookbook I think. I took the recipe and tweaked a few things to my taste. Less sugar, more cinnamon, my own frosting recipe, etc.

So... let's make this damn thing! The list:

Dough:

2 Cups Flour (all-purpose/unbleached)

1 Cup Sugar (white)

2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp salt 

1 Tbsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

4 eggs

1/4 Cup Oil (canola/veggie)

1 Cup Sour Cream

1/4 Cup Butter (softened)

1 box Vanilla Pudding Mix (3oz size)

Filling:

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar (packed)

1 Tbsp Cinnamon

Frosting:

16oz Cream Cheese (plain/softened) 

1/2 Cup Butter (softened)

3 Cups Powdered Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1/2 tsp Salt (kosher)

So many things! Ok, so the obvious first thing that you'll need is a Bundt pan. They come in all kinds of shapes, here's mine:

It's by Wilton. I think it was around $10-15? You can find it at Michael's Craftstore, Walmart, or any specific cookware store. Or, if you're super introverted and don't like human contact very often... Amazon.com 😉

Preheat your oven to 350°. Sift your dry ingredients in a bowl. The flour, salt, baking powder, pudding mix, and cinnamon. 

*Sifting these ahead of time helps with the lumps. Smooth batter, smooth cake, happy tastebuds! If you're using kosher salt, you'll have little grains left in the strainer, just press them through. No biggie.*

In a separate bowl, mix the filling, set aside. This is going to go in layers inbetween the batter. The goal being to replicate the swirls in your typical cinnamon roll. Replicate and totally conquer! 

Now for the wet stuff. Cream your butter and white sugar. Just mix on a medium high speed until pale and fluffy. If you are #blessed like me and have a Kitchen Aid, use the paddle attachment! Let your hair down! You earned it! You deserve to have nice things. Or, if you're slumming it with a hand mixer, just... do that I guess. I'm so sorry, I just can't imagine life without my Kitchen Aid. Game changer.

Mix in the rest of the wet ingredients: eggs, vanilla, sour cream, and oil.

*Side note! Quick word about why I use certain ingredients. I use both butter and oil because it gives a dense enough cake but still has some height and flaky-ness to it. Oil creates weight to a cake while butter creates flakes. Using both creates a wonderful marraige, especially for a Bundt cake. The sour cream is kind of like buttermilk for red velvet cake, tangy flavor! I use 4 eggs because it gives me the best consistency in my dough.

The one you're probably wondering most about is the instant pudding mix. Haha I give all the credit to the blog I got this recipe from. The pudding mix gives the cake such a rich, sweet, dense flavor! I think there's pectin in the mix or something. Either way, there's a big difference without it. Use the pudding mix. Haha*

Now you have 3 bowls: wet, dry, and filling. Mix your wet and dry together getting a pretty thick dough. Very sticky. Smells awesome. Time to layer!

Grab your Bundt pan and spray the living hell out of it with cooking spray. You want to be able to lift the cake out of the pan. Would be a shame to have all of that go to waste because you were a dumb dumb and forgot to spray it. Haha

Spoon 1/3 of your batter into the pan and spread out in a smooth layer. 

Time for that filling! Sprinkle 1/3 of the filling around the center of the batter. It's ok if it hits the sides, but you get more "blow-outs" that way. You'll see what I mean in a second. Now for the second layer of batter!

This one is a little more difficult to smooth over the sugar. Be patient. Deep breaths.

Thick, pillow-y goodness! Ok, last layer of sugar. Grab a kabob stick or tooth pick and swirl the top layers of batter and sugar together. 

You'll wanna do this because the sugar is going to boil and harden in the oven. Like a caramel candy on top of your cake. That's a hard pass for me. Haha

Ugh, so pretty. I spray a little more cooking spray on top because I'm paranoid about the candy thing. Haha Pop it into the oven for 50min. Do a toothpick check. If you get some of the filling coming back, that's fine. But raw dough means another 5-10min. Depends on your oven, weather, etc.

Yaaaas bundtcake! Giving me all the life right now! Cool this for 10min, then invert it onto a cooling rack to cool completely. You don't wanna take it out of the pan straight out of the oven because its still cooking technically. It's called "carryover heat". You wanna let the cake start to set first before moving it around. I've been impatient before and it resulted in a sunken in cake and a very weepy Rachel. So sad.

See that line of filling? That's what I meant by a blowout. When I removed this from the pan, I had some cake stuck in the pan where this line of filling was. Luckily, this wasn't too bad and I left with most of my cake intact. Yay me!

Frost it! Oh yeah, I have to tell you how to make it...

Mix the butter, cream cheese and vanilla until smooth. Sprinkle the salt in. Mix. Add the powdered sugar 1 cup at a time. Scrap the bowl inbetween mixes. Taste it for more vanilla or salt. Texture should be kinda goop-y, but firm enough to stay on the back of your spatula.

Sooooo good! You could have this for breakfast if you wanted! Make this. Eat this. Love me for it.

R.

Twitter/Instagram:

maplebaconrae 

Refried Beans

And I'm back! Long time no writing on this blog. Lots to talk about, lots to update on, but that's for another post. 

*Also, I feel like apologizing for how totally NOT tech savvy I am with this blog. I have no idea what format and layout I'm supposed to use. I can't "code". Plus, I use my phone to write these posts anyways. All good intentions I swear! Haha*

Ok! Today I share a great triumph. Gold medal Olympian worthy accomplishment... I have mastered the art of Refried Beans! 

I, the whitest of white girls, by a complete and total accident, made beans that tasted better then ANY restaurant I've been to. (that's not really saying much, I'm from Salem, OR hahaha) Guys, I could cry. No more canned beans that you reheat in the microwave and pray it doesn't taste like metal. Legit, from scratch, takes like 3-4hrs to make but totally worth it beans!!! I've made it! We're in the big leagues now!!

Wanna know how I made it???

Grocery List:

3 Cups Pinto Beans (raw, uncooked)

2 Cups Onion (sweet yellow/large dice)

1 jalapeño (large dice)

2 Tbsp Garlic (minced)

1/3 Cup Bacon Fat (you heard me)

1 Tbsp Cumin

2 Tbsp Chili Powder

1/2 tsp Cayenne

1 tsp granulated garlic

2 tsp granulated onion

Salt and Pepper to taste

*If you're wanting to keep this vegetarian/vegan, you can use veggie oil for this. It's fried beans after all so it needs some kind of fat/oil to help the "frying" process. Also, if you're a total whimp when it comes to spice, take out the jalapeño and cayenne. No judgement here.*

Y'all ready for this? A quick rundown of how you can make these bad boys. The first step is to soak the beans. 

Raw beans have a hard exterior and you wanna soften that outside a bit. Also, if you've never seen a raw pinto bean, it has a bunch of black flecks on it. You wanna get rid of that as much as you can. Soaking helps! You can do this overnight. Just put your beans in a pot of water and set aside overnight. But if you're very forgetful and last minute like me... here's the quicker method! Grab a big pot with a lid or Dutch oven (contains even heat really nicely, worth the investment, your friends will be totally jelly) and pour your beans into it with about two knuckles of water covering it. 

You'll notice the beans float, so just push them down to the bottom so you can see how much water you have. Pop it onto the stove, high heat, until it starts boiling. When that happens, kill the heat and put a lid on it for 1 hour. This softens the beans and pulls some of the dark flecks off of it. I think it's dirt? Maybe? Idk, it tastes bitter if you don't pre soak that off so just trust me on this. Haha

Like Moses parting the seas! Or like the Orcs surrounding the Fellowship in LOTR Return of the King. Haha

Ew. Rinse and drain that immediately. Dice your onion and jalapeño. Doesn't really matter what size since it'll be blended later. You can also use fresh garlic for this, but the container of the minced stuff I get from Costco reminds me that some shortcuts in life are worth taking. Add your rinsed beans and veg to the pot with your spices as well. 

*Ok, the salt and pepper. I said "to taste", but if you're totally freaking out and not confident in your taste buds/cooking abilities to rely on that, I used 1 tsp of fresh ground black pepper and 2 tsp of kosher salt. I added 1 tsp of salt to begin with and 1 more tsp after everything was blended at the end. It changes every time I make them. Some beans really soak up the flavor and other beans I have to play with.*

Cover with water about 2in above the beans and bring on the heat! I put my stove burner at a 7/10 just to get the water boiling faster. I popped it down to a 5 when the bubbles started happening. Now, you can put a lid on it or leave it open to air. It reduces down faster if you don't have a lid. Steam is able to escape because it's not trapped by the lid creating condensation. Blah blah blah...

*The liquid! I've seen people use milk to boil the beans in (yep, you heard right!), I've seen chicken stock used to help cheat the amount of flavor you get. I like using water because I can control the flavor a little more. Stock has a distinct taste and could overpower your dish.*

This is after 2 hours of simmering. You can see the line where the water level was at initially. You can also see the black flecks on the beans are gone! You can take a bean out to see how tender it is. Smash it with the back of your spatula. See how much resistance you get. I stirred every 15min just to make sure nothing was sticking to the bottom. Depending on how "loose" you like your beans, you'll wanna make sure you have enough liquid to work with when blending. I like it thicker. So that means less watery-ness. 

*If your beans are reducing down too fast, you can totally add more water during cooking to help it not stick to the bottom. If your beans are tender and ready to be blended, but you have too much liquid, you can get a ladle and take some of the liquid out before blending.* 

You can get a regular blender and pour some of the beans in at a time. But, it's really hot liquid flying around, so I like to use an immersion blender. Great for really hot things that you need to blend. And you don't have to do it in batches either. It all stays in the same pot it's cooked in. Less dishes. Happy Rachel. Haha

Blended! Sorta kinda loose still, but thick enough to coat my spatula. Now for the fat! Ah, bacon fat. How I love thee.

Sweet mother of God, Rachel, do you have a giant mason jar of lard just sitting in your fridge? Why yes, I do. And so should you. I like to take it out and smell it. Like a Christmas ham. Ahhhh... 

Ok. Back to where we were. This is what makes your beans "Refried". The reason it's "re" fried is because you already cooked and blended the beans. This step elevates it to the HNL. (Hole Nother Level) Pop it back on the stove on medium heat (6/10) and watch it bubble away. Every minute or so stirring so it doesn't stick to the bottom. You're waiting on color preference and consistency here. I let mine cook down for another 15min.

Looks kind of weird, not gonna lie. Haha 

I made this for the first time in April and it keeps getting better every time I make it. I feel that way about every dish I make. You learn something new each time you get in the kitchen and cook something. Whether it's flavor or time management. Constant growth. Super cool!

Until next time,

R.

Twitter/Instagram:

maplebaconrae