Mini pumpkin bundt cakes with a cream cheese centre are the perfect tea time treat. Combining a spiced pumpkin cake with a touch of cream cheese, these are super easy and sure to impress!
Making Mini Pumpkin Bundt Cakes
This recipe can be made as a single large bundt or as a set of six in a mini bundt cake mould. Personally the mini variety is just too cute to pass up!
In developing these mini pumpkin cream cheese bundt cakes, I've taken some inspiration from a couple of other fantastic pumpkin bundts: Sally's Baking Addiction's Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bundts and Just So Tasty's Pumpkin Bundt Cake.
Canned Pumpkin for Baking
As ever, when dealing with pumpkin recipes, take care about what tinned pumpkin you are using! For this recipe, be sure to use pumpkin purée, not pumpkin pie filling. These are different ingredients.
Recipes calling for pumpkin purée will not work as they should with a tin of pumpkin pie filling. This is because the pumpkin pie filling already includes various additives and seasoning that will change the nature of your recipe.
Easy Bundt Cake Batter
The batter for this cake recipe is incredibly simple and straightforward. There are fundamentally three steps:
- Whisk together the wet ingredients. For the purposes of most baking, sugar is effectively counted as a 'wet' ingredient. This is because, despite technically being 'dry', it requires even distribution with the liquids. This is to avoid overmixing the flour (and other dry ingredients) at a later stage.
- Sift together the dry ingredients. This is your flour, salt, leavening agents and spices.
- Pour the wet into the dry, whisking until just combined.
How to Make Cream Cheese Layer
To make the cream cheese layer in this recipe, you'll need four ingredients:
- Cream cheese: I use spreadable cream cheese as this is the only option in the UK. If you're in the US, you could use a cream cheese block, but you will need to take this out of the refrigerator to soften in advance, to be able to work with it.
- Egg
- Sugar
- Vanilla
Simply whip the cream cheese, egg and vanilla together. Then add in the sugar and whisk to a smooth thick cream.
Tips for Filling Mini Bundt Moulds
So this is a classic 'do as I say, not as I do' recommendation. There are two ways to fill a mini bundt cake mould - one is the easy way and the other is the messy way.
The Easy Way
The easiest (and cleanest) way to fill the mini bundt mould is with a piping bag.
You can either use a piping bag or a sealable sandwich bag. You will need two - one for your batter and a second for your cream cheese layer.
Fill one bag with your cake batter. Don't overfill - it should be about half the two-thirds full, so that you have reasonable control and don't risk it erupting. This means you will probably need to refill the bag to use up all of the batter, but don't worry, it will be far easier to top this up than to clean up a messy batter explosion!
Cut the tip off of the piping bag (or sandwich bag) so that you have about a .5" (1.25cm) opening. Pipe a layer of the cake batter around each mould, filling until you've used about a third of your batter. The moulds should be about ⅓ full. Set the bag of cake batter aside.
Filling another piping bag with the cream cheese mixture, cut the tip off to make an opening about the same size as before. Pipe a layer of the cream cheese on top of each layer of cake batter. You should use up the cream cheese doing this.
Return to the cake batter and pipe a layer on top of the cream cheese in each mould. You should finish the batter as evenly as possible across the six mini bundts.
The moulds should be about ¾ full.
The Messy Way
Alternatively - you can just fill your cake moulds with a spoon. This way avoids the use of piping bags, but takes longer and is certainly more likely to cause mess.
Using about a third of your cake batter, spoon a layer of this into the base of each mould and carefully spread evenly.
Add your cream cheese on top, dividing the mixture into the six moulds and spreading as evenly as possible.
Finish off with the rest of your cake batter.
Either way you choose to fill the baking tins, these are now ready for the oven!
Tips for Removing from the Pan
Check the bundts for doneness by using a toothpick inserted in the middle of the thickest part of the bundts. These should come out clean to show the cakes are ready.
Test towards the centre of the baking pan for best indication of the readiness. Depending on your oven and how evenly this bakes, you may want to rotate the pan while baking or test more than one cake to be sure.
Once baked, I have a few recommendations for removing from the tin:
- Allow the cakes to cool in the tin for about 5 to 10 minutes before flipping out.
- The easiest way to do this is to place a wire rack upside down over the whole pan.
- Using a dish towel or oven mitts if the cake tin is still too hot to handle, grasp the sides of the tin and the rack together and flip these so that the tin is upside down over the rack.
- Tap the rack down onto the counter (still holding the cake tin upside down on top of this) with a little force. If you have greased and floured the tin well, the cakes should release easily.
FAQs for Mini Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bundt Cakes
These mini bundts can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for about 3 days. They will start to become a bit stale after a couple of days, but can certainly be made a day ahead of an event to save time.
Yes, the mini bundts can be frozen if you would like to keep them for longer. They are best frozen on the day they are made, once they have cooled down. Place in a freezer bag or freezer safe container. These can be kept in the freezer for a few months. Defrost before consuming.
Yes, by all means - if you would prefer not to include the cream cheese layer, feel free to simply leave this out. This recipe will still fill the 6 mini bundts and can be made as a pumpkin bundt without cream cheese. They should bake in roughly the same amount of time, but do keep an eye on them as they may be ready a minute or two early without the added layer.
Cakes stick to their tins for two main reasons. One is if they aren't fully baked and the other is if the cake tin is not greased and floured well enough in preparation. Bundts are notorious for the central hole, which it is often difficult to get floured well, so causes an additional point of sticking.
If you are struggling to remove the cakes, you can try to use a toothpick and carefully trace around the cake and the central hole inside the tin to help give this more release before trying to gently pry the cakes free.
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Mini Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bundt Cakes
Ingredients
Ingredients for Mini Pumpkin Bundt Cakes
- 1⅓ cup plain flour (all purpose flour)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup light brown muscovado sugar
- ⅓ cup sugar
- ½ cup flavorless oil
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¾ cup pumpkin purée
Ingredients for Cream Cheese Layer
- 1 cup cream cheese
- 1 egg
- 3 tablespoon sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Instructions for Pumpkin Cake Batter
- Preheat your oven to 350°F (175C/155C Fan) and prepare your baking tin by greasing and flouring this well.
- In a medium bowl or jug, whisk together eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla. Add the pumpkin purée and whisk until smooth. Set this aside.
- Sift the flour, baking soda, salt and spices over a large bowl.
- Slowly pour the pumpkin mixture into the flour and whisk together until just combined. Set aside to prepare the cream cheese layer.
Instructions for Cream Cheese Layer
- In a medium bowl, beat together the cream cheese, vanilla and egg.
- Add the sugar and beat until smooth.
Instructions for Assembly and Baking
- Fill the prepared cake moulds, using about ⅓ of the batter, to create the first layer of pumpkin cake.
- Evenly distribute the cream cheese into the moulds and carefully spread this on top of the pumpkin layer to create the cream cheese layer.
- Distribute the remaining cake batter evenly amongst the pans to cover the cream cheese layer.
- Bake in the middle of the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes. Once a toothpick inserted in the thickest part of the central bundts comes out clean, these are done.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes in the tin before flipping out onto a wire rack to continue cooling.
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