Rhubarb & Maple Bundt Cake and Maple Icing

After seeing all the glorious cakes over at Violets Pantry, especially Maria’s rhubarb cake, it got me in the mood for baking, so bake I did.

Todays little experiment was a rhubarb & maple bundt cake. I chose a bundt tin simply because I bought a Le Creuset one several months ago and had yet to ‘Christen’ it.  This seemed the perfect opportunity.

The recipe combines two types of cake mix and a simple maple icing – giving the three shades of brown. Despite needing to make up two mixes it is dead simple to make, especially if done in a free standing food mixer.

The brown sugar and maple syrup give a wonderful deep flavour to the cake, perfectly suited to eating with a good espresso or even a cappuccino earlier in the day.  

The rhubarb, apple and blueberry compote on the other hand gives a slight sharpness to the cake, reducing the almost clarty feeling the cake has.

Be warned though the icing recipe makes far more than you actually need, but thin it down further with some more double cream and it’s a delight poured over the cake to make a dessert.

Eat this and imagine you are sitting in a New England cafe and you’ll just about get the mood right I reckon.