Holiday Spiced Bundt Cake with Fatworks & Maple Hill Creamery

by Angela Gallardo in Desserts, Fermented, Holiday, Recipes

2 comments

I’m so excited to bring you a new recipe from some of my very favorite companies right now: Fatworks and Maple Hill Creamery!

This Holiday Spiced Bundt uses a few of my favorite products of theirs (leaf lard and whole milk kefir) to yield an extremely moist and rich cake.  It’s filled with molasses and warm spices for the perfect holiday dessert.

I have been cooking with Fatworks products for years now and have been so impressed with the quality of their fats.  They source from only the very best pastured farms and make no exceptions with regard to keeping their offerings top quality.  If you are curious about adding more animal fats to your diet, see this informative page on their website, which provides a wealth of information on how fats have a definitive spot in a heart-healthy diet.

I use their beef tallow regularly for pan- or deep-frying (easy favorite = chicken wings tossed in a light coating of tapioca starch, generous sprinkle of sea salt & black pepper after frying).  I am consistently blown away at the lightness of the resulting foods.  The higher viscosity of tallow prevents a large amount from being soaked up so you get a crispy, but never soggy, food.

Searing a piece of meat in a little bit of pure lard add SO MUCH flavor.  And if you haven’t tried duck fat before, I highly recommend theirs.  You will be blown away by the flavor it adds to veggies.

This recipe utilizes their high-quality leaf lard, which is a prized pig fat due to the fact that there is only a small amount found in the internal organs.  Due to the location on the pig, it has much less of a “porky” flavor, making it perfect for baked goods.  Alton Brown recently named it one of his top picks in the holiday issue of People Magazine!  I’ve learned at least 50% of my cooking knowledge from Alton so I can vouch for the fact that he doesn’t make recommendations lightly.  Adding leaf lard to this bundt keeps it so very moist.  If you haven’t baked with lard before, you will die over this cake!

The next key ingredient to this cake is whole milk kefir by Maple Hill Creamery.  Ever since implementing the GAPS diet over a year ago, I have been so blessed to be able to incorporate more dairy into my diet.  I do particularly well with aged and/or cultured dairy so kefir was one of the first things I sought out in my reintroduction phase.  But scouring most stores, all I could find was lowfat kefir, which was very frustrating.  The fat in dairy is one of the most nourishing components so I really wanted that fat!

Low-fat (and nonfat 😝) dairy is very common, which makes Maple Hill that much more amazing, as all of their products use whole milk. I was so excited to find their kefir, which also comes in a plain flavor! (also hard to find in stores)  It is my go-to for chocolate bulletproof smoothies (made with my butter coffee blocks, a banana, egg yolks, peptides, etc).  Their greek yogurts are also SO GOOD and have such a smooth, creamy texture.  If you’ve been eating a lower fat yogurt product with added gums (Maple Hill uses none!), you will notice a night and day difference with these yogurts.

One of the important things to note about Maple Hill Creamery is that thanks to the pastured farms they get their milk from, their products consistently test with much higher nutritional value than conventional dairy products.  You’ll get higher omega-3 fats and much lower omega-6 fats, which is important for the high omega-6 world we live in (grains, “vegetable” oils, CAFO animal meat, etc).

I learned so much about the process of good cow farming from this page on their website, which explains in layman’s terms exactly how they go from the farm to the store doing things the way nature intended.  It’s a quick read and will completely sell you on trying out their stuff! (if this cake hasn’t already convinced you 😉)

I frequently use their whole milk kefir just like I would buttermilk.  It is thick and creamy, and has that similar tangy flavor.  Which is just the best in cakes!  While this recipe is already not overly sweet, the kefir adds that additional dimension of tanginess that keeps the cake from being too cloying.  But don’t take my word for it!  You absolutely want this as a centerpiece for your holiday festivities this year.

Get a printable PDF of the recipe

Holiday Spiced Bundt Cake

Yields: 8-10 servings

1/2 c. Maple Hill Creamery Plain Kefir

1/3 c. melted Fatworks Leaf Lard

3 eggs

1/2 c. maple syrup or honey

3 tbsp. unsulphured, blackstrap molasses

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tsp. sea salt

3 1/4 c. blanched almond flour

1 c. tapioca starch

1 tbsp. ground cinnamon

2 tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. ground cardamom

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325F.  Grease an 8″ (6-cup) bundt pan generously with Fatworks leaf lard.

Add the kefir, melted leaf lard, eggs, maple syrup, molasses, vanilla extract, and sea salt to the bowl of a stand mixer fitter with the paddle attachment.  Mix on medium speed until smooth.

Combine the almond flour, tapioca starch, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves, baking powder, and baking soda in a separate bowl.  Whisk well.

Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix on low speed to incorporate.  Move the speed to high to mix until smooth.

Pour the batter into the greased bundt cake pan.  Set the pan onto a sheet pan for sturdier inserting/removal from the oven.  Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Allow the cake to rest 10 minutes before removing from the pan.

To remove, run a knife gently along the seams at the top of the cake.  Place a cooling rack upside down along the top of the bundt and invert the bundt pan onto the rack.  Gently tap on the pan until the cake releases (this can take a few tries but it should release intact).  Allow the cake to come to room temperature before glazing.

For the glaze:

1/4 c. coconut butter

1/4 c. maple syrup or honey

1/2 c. coconut cream (from the solidified part of a can of coconut milk post-refrigeration)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Pinch of ground nutmeg

1/4 c. melted butter

Directions:

Add the coconut butter and maple syrup to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Mix on medium speed until very smooth, at least 1 minute.

Add the coconut cream, vanilla extract, and nutmeg and mix again to incorporate.  Add the melted butter and mix on high speed until smooth and creamy.  Glaze the cake immediately.

This recipe is brought to you by Fatworks and Maple Hill Creamery.  All opinions expressed are my own and genuine to my honest experience.