FESTIVE CRANBERRY MINI BUNDT CAKES

Oooooh new tins!

I’m so excited about using my new little bundt tins, a rare purchase for me as my vast collection of cake tins usually holds something I can use, usually found at the bottom of the pile, harbouring a few cobwebs. I saw these yesterday on a reduced counter and couldn’t resist as I am a fan of bundt cakes but I haven’t got any of these mini ones. These are nice and heavy and feel as though they will last for years. I can certainly say I am very pleased so far, these little cranberry cakes, light and buttery and full of flavour, turned out perfectly on being turned upside-down with no need for any help at all.

Having been a baker for a living and I think rather older than the average blogger, most of my tins are various shades of brown, tarnished with age, with just a few more modern tart tins still showing signs of youth, not worn and battered like us oldies.

The tins in the photo are only a small part of a collection of cake tins (a clattering may be?) that are clogging up my kitchen cupboard arteries, I have piles of celebration cake tins in the loft, under the bed and in the shed. The big party tins get little, if any, use these days but I can’t bare to part with them, I just might need that horseshoe shaped tin one day or if I’m feeling particularly greedy I could make a heart shape birthday cake for my husband that would feed thirty.

My mother was an avid baker and home cook and there was never a time that the cake tin didn’t hold some lovely moreish treasures for our little and not so little fingers to find. We always had the luxury of a dessert, of course something that wasn’t truly appreciated until much older in life. I remember various times being invited to my first boyfriend’s parents’ house and finding it strange that the dessert was always tinned peaches and evaporated milk.

Typing that has bought back a memory, I actually remember quite liking tinned peaches and ‘evap’, a vintage combination I haven’t eaten for years and years, it was the tinned fruit cocktail that I couldn’t stand, with those funny little grapes and soggy pear squares. But his mother never produced a crumble or apple pie or bread pudding or anything with custard whatsoever. And never cake. I had entered the real world and soon realised that not everyone’s mum liked cooking or had the talent for it like like my mum, since which time I have been eternally grateful.

Like all children, as we grow up we usually think our families are the norm and are shocked when we get older to realise that all families are not the same and some things we have thought as normal, other people may find slightly peculiar. After countless Christmases together, my husband still thinks it’s really weird that I save my Christmas presents to open after lunch. But I can’t understand why he doesn’t eat apple sauce with roast pork. And why does he always eat his vegetables first? And come to think of it why does he insist that porridge has to be so thick the spoon will stand up on its own. And have salt in. He won’t eat mine, he says its like gruel, although I’m quite sure he has never eaten gruel, unless he’s thinking of slop and there’s something he hasn’t told me.

I digress. The tins came in a pack of four and as there was enough mixture for six, I made two large cup cakes as well. I felt like making something with a festive edge but fancied something not too heavy or rich and as my nine year insisted on making a chocolate cake today I steered away from the sweeter end and went for cranberries which I love this time of the year, their tartness balanced by the simple orange icing. I made this up as I went along and am really pleased with the result. The little bit of grated orange zest really lifted the flavours and the addition of pecans just made them a little more Christmassy. The mixture could be used to make one loaf cake.