Strawberry Fig Spiced Bundt Cake

If you’re looking towards fall and want a tasty Bundt to serve to your family, this cake is it! My husband found this recipe for me, when he was looking for something to use up strawberry fig preserves. We had picked up the preserves at a local farm and produce store: Remlinger Farms. The farm offers u-pick berries and other activities. Our summer has been so cool that when we went, they weren’t picking and the farm was quite quiet. That was ok, we had a fun time exploring the store and picked the strawberry fig preserves from their vast collection of jams and jellies.

If I were to offer this cake to a person in a blind taste test, I’m not sure that they would pick out that it contains strawberry fig preserves. It tastes like a very moist spice cake, which in my book is great! I imagine the fig flavor would be more pronounced if you used pure fig preserves, but I liked the sweetness of the strawberry.

I did have a couple of problems with the cake, which I think are more my issue than an issue with the cake. My cake stuck a little bit when coming out of the pan, which I think was partially because the cake was so moist and delicate. Make sure you grease the pan really well! The original cake recipe called for making a caramel glaze, which would be extraordinary. I didn’t have heavy cream which was required to make the caramel, so I ended up making a brown sugar glaze. I even microwaved the glaze a bit to try to melt the brown sugar and get rid of the graininess of the brown sugar. But that didn’t really work. The glaze was never smooth, so next time I will go ahead and make the caramel glaze.

Strawberry Fig Spiced Bundt Cake

2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon allspice
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup strawberry fig preserves
1 cup chopped pecans

½ cup brown sugar, packed
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons water

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan.

In a large mixer bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and spices; stir to combine. Add the butter and oil and beat well. Add eggs and beat until well blended. Stir in the buttermilk and vanilla. Stir in preserves and chopped pecans.

Pour into the prepared baking pan; bake for 55 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool 10 minutes in the pan and then remove from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack before glazing.

Glaze the cake: in a small bowl combine the brown sugar, vanilla, and water. Stir until smooth. Drizzle over the cake. Allow to harden before cutting cake.

Cake recipe from http://southernfood.about.com/od/datesandfigs/r/r70225a.htm
Glaze recipe from The Food Network