A bundt cake just says christmas to us, so what can be more festive than a mulled wine bundt cake?!
Any keen readers of the blog may notice this cake looks pretty similar to a bundt cake we did as part of our GBBO 2016 series, this yummy pink grapefruit drizzle. It was entirely unintentional, but the two cakes couldn’t taster more different! This mulled wine cake perfectly encaptures the flavours of our favourite christmas drink! If you don’t have a bundt tin, we promise it’ll taste just as good in a loaf tin! (this recipe is enough for about two 2 pound loaf tins)
This is a light spiced sponge cake, meaning we didn’t use dark brown sugar, we wanted to keep it nice and light. So it’s quite different from other spiced cakes you tend to get around christmas and about as far removed from a christmas fruit cake as you can get (whilst still being a spiced cake) which to us is a good thing as we are not a fan of the traditional christmas cake, if that is your thing you can check out our christmas cake recipe here.
We soaked the sponge with mulled wine syrup, which is made by bringing mulled wine (we have a recipe for that here if you need it!!), orange juice and sugar to the boil. It’s important to soak your sponge whilst it’s still warm so that the syrup can soak through, about 5-10 mins after it’s come out of the oven is the perfect time to do this! After we’d soaked the sponge in mulled wine and allowed the cake to fully cool in the tin, we turned it out and topped it with some mulled wine icing (more wine is always a good thing in our books). This is just simply icing sugar mixed with mulled wine. We loved the simple look of the cake so instead of going too over the top with decorations, after we’d spooned over the icing and allowed it to drip down the sides, we sprinkled over some edible glitter (glitter is always appropriate at christmas).
- 350g butter
- 350g caster sugar
- 5 eggs
- 500g selfraising flour
- 5 tbsp milk
- zest of 1 orange
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp allspice
- 1 tsp ginger
- 100ml mulled wine
- 50g caster sugar
- 50ml mulled wine
- 150g icing sugar
- Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add in one egg at a time, whisking until incorporated.
- Once all of the eggs have been combined, add in half of the flour and mix well. Then add the milk and mix again.
- Add the rest of the flour, spices and the zest and mix for 1-2 minutes until you have a well combined, smooth mixture.
- Pour into a greased and floured baking tin, we used a bundt tin, and bake at 180 degrees celcius for 40-45 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
- For the syrup
- Whilst the cake is in the oven, add mulled wine and sugar into a small pan on a medium heat, bring to the boil and allow to simmer for about 30 sec-1 minute, then take off the heat and let cool slightly.
- Once the cake has cooled for 5-10 mins, with a skewer poke holes in the cake every few centimeters, then spoon over the syrup and allow to soak into the sponge. Once the syrup is well soaked into the sponge, remove from the tin.
- In a small bowl mix the mulled wine with the icing sugar to form a thick paste.
- Spoon over the cake, allowing it to dribble down the sides.
Although there’s very little alcohol actually in this cake (the alcohol in the syrup burns off when it boils) and there’s only a little in the icing, you can always make your icing with just water, or with some orange juice to make it completely kid friendly!
