Baked Sunday Mornings: Burnt Sugar Bundt Cake with Caramel Rum (Vanilla) Frosting

I tend to be a very indecisive person. Sure, this is fine for major decisions, but my husband frequently has to remind me that cookbooks I am buying will not be the last I ever purchase when it takes me five days to place an Amazon order or that I will have another treat tomorrow when I agonize over whether I want a cookie or an ice cream cone. Yesterday morning I was having a hard time deciding what to make for dinner that night (it had to be good - I always make something nice on Saturday, not to mention it was the first night of National League baseball playoffs). The upside to last night’s meal? I knew no matter what I made for dinner,* we would have a fabulous dessert, as I had already made this week’s Baked Sunday Mornings selection, Burnt Sugar Bundt Cake with Caramel Rum (Vanilla) Frosting, from Baked Explorations. 

Bundt cakes are naturally beautiful, as you make them in a pretty pan, and rarely have more than a light glaze or dusting of powdered sugar to decorate them. This one had both a generous layer of frosting and a garnish, which borders on being a little gaudy and over-the-top sugary (I am trying not to think about how much sugar was involved - let’s just say it’s a good thing we buy ten-pound bags of it at Costco), but it works in both aesthetics and flavor. The cake in the book is very dark, which made me worry I didn’t cook my caramel mixture long enough. I was happy when I bit into it and tasted a nice carmelly cake with a nice sturdy crumb, rather than just a plain sugary cake. I almost wonder if the cake in the book was made with brown sugar. 

Two weeks in and we are very pleased with the selections for this group! You can find the recipe and see how the other bakers fared on the Baked Sunday Mornings site.

*Dinner ended up being exceptionally good, too, meaning the only disappointing part of the evening was the Giants losing. I made Pork Shoulder Ragu with Papparedelle, from Dinner: a Love Story (DALS), which is quickly becoming one of my favorite cookbooks and has generated a handful of go-to recipes in the past few months. You can find the recipe for the pork ragu on the DALS website, here.