Mini Cinnamon Bundt Cakes

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. They say to wear pink every day, which isn’t hard for me. I pretty much do every day regardless. I’ve been painting my nails different pink designs every week, last week was so much cuter, but, of course, I didn’t get a picture! AH! This one was a bit sloppy, I’d be lying if I said I did this sober. A friend made a batch of moonshine, and just for me, he made some of that into an apple pie moonshine. He did a great job! He gets an A for effort, but as you know, if you’ve read any of my blog, I LOVE CINNAMON, so I added a few extra cinnamon sticks to my mason jar. So good. Haha!

I made my (and my father’s) favorite cake this last week. When I was a kid, my favorite cake for every birthday (or whatever) was yellow cake with chocolate frosting. It’s still a good favorite of mine. So simple and delicious, not overly chocolately, just enough to give it some dimension. My mother’s best friend was deathly allergic to chocolate. She couldn’t even smell it, so every birthday I had to do something else for my party. When I was a lot younger I completely resented her for this (oh, the things of importance when you’re young), I just wanted my darn chocolate frosting. My mom started making this cake, still kind of yellow cake, but no chocolate. I LOVE IT. My dad gets it for every birthday, as well. And it’s so simple. So, what do we do with a simple recipe? Make it terribly time consuming and non-simple by making it into MINI cakes!

So worth my time. These guys are adorable and delicious. Just pop one in your mouth! OMG, YUM. Just looking at these little guys makes me want to go eat five or six, haha! Dangerous.

So, secret family recipe. Completely amazing.

 

 

Cinnamon Bundt Cake:
Yields 1 bundt cake (or millions of mini bundt cakes). Prep time: 30 minutes Bake time: 40-50 minutes. Total time: 70-80 minutes. (This is quite a bit more for making all of those mini cakes, if you only have one pan to work with! They bake for about 15 minutes, but only 12 at a time…)

Ingredients:
1 package of yellow cake mix
1 package of instant vanilla pudding (the smaller one)
½ cup of oil
1 cup of water
4 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 tablespoons of melted butter (or 1 tablespoon of butter flavor)

Cinnamon Sugar:
½ cup of sugar
2 or 3 tablespoons of cinnamon

Icing (Optional):
1 cup of powdered sugar
½ teaspoon of vanilla
1 teaspoon of milk (or more if not liquid enough to drizzle)

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and generously spray your bundt pan (or mini bundt pan)
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, or with your hand mixer, mix yellow cake mix and vanilla pudding together.
3. Add in your oil and water and mix well.
4. Add in oil and all four eggs, mixing well after each addition.
5. Add in your melted butter (or butter flavor).
6. Place ½ of your cake batter in your bundt pan, sprinkle your layer of cinnamon sugar mixture (if you don’t feel it’s enough, add more! It should be a complete layer of sugar, where you don’t see the bottom batter at all, but you don’t want a thick layer, because it’ll be too crunchy in your cake).
7. Layer the rest of the batter on top of the cinnamon sugar recipe.
8. Bake in oven for 40-50 minutes.
9. Cool slightly and drizzle your icing over the top and ENJOY!
10. If you’re using the mini bundt pans, fill about 1/3 full, small amount of cinnamon sugar, and then another small amount so it’s only about ¾ full, it will rise quite a bit! I didn’t do this the first batch (pictured) and they kind of exploded out. I also didn’t actually drizzle mine with icing, but that’s only because I didn’t have the time!