Walnut Spice Cake with Orange & Brown Sugar Icing
Servings
8-10
Servings
8-10
Ingredients
Cake
Icing
Sweet & Spicy Walnut Topping
Instructions
Cake
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour 10-inch bundt cake pan. Tap out any excess flour.
  2. Place 3/4 cup of walnuts on small sheet pan and toast for about 8 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool and then roughly chop walnuts. Set aside. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices and set aside.
  3. Using a stand mixer with paddle attachment beat together the butter and oil until well combined. About one minute. On medium speed, slowly add the sugar then vanilla and beat for 2 minutes or until mixture is light and fluffy. Stop mixer and using a spatula, scrape the bottom of the bowl to make sure everything is incorporated and beat again. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Again stop mixer and scrape the bottom of bowl as needed.
  4. On low speed, add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the egg-butter mixture and mix until barely combined. Add half of the buttermilk and mix until almost combined. Stop and scrape bowl. Turn mixer back to low speed, add half of the flour until barely combined then add remaining buttermilk and mix. Stop and scrape bowl. Turn mixer back on and add remaining dry ingredients and mix until JUST incorporated. Fold in toasted chopped walnuts with a spatula. Pour batter in prepared bundt cake pan.
  5. Bake cake or about 25-30 minutes. Maybe a little longer depending on your oven but check at 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back up when pressed lightly in the middle with your fingertip.
Spiced Walnuts
  1. Keep oven at 350 degrees F. Line a baking tray with foil and lightly coat with non-stick spray. In a small bowl, place walnuts and spices together and mix to coat.
  2. Heat sugar, water, and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until the butter is melted. Cook for 1 minute and remove from heat. Slowly pour butter mixture over the walnuts and stir to coat.
  3. Transfer walnuts to baking tray and spread into a single layer.
  4. Bake for 10 minutes. Take out of the oven and stir walnuts with a wooden spoon. Return to oven and bake for an additional 6 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.
Icing
  1. In a small sauces pan, melt the butter over medium heat, add the brown sugar and salt. Stir until sugar melts and smooth. Add the milk, continue to stir and bring to a boil and then remove from heat.
  2. Pour into mixing bowl (or any bowl if using handheld mixer) and set aside to cool for about 10 minutes. Add vanilla and powdered sugar and beat well until smooth and slightly fluffy. If too thin add more powdered sugar if too thick add a little bit of milk. Add a few swipes of orange zest and mix one last time.