Crazy Delicious Cajun Bundt Cake

Sharing this Crazy Delicious Cajun Bundt Cake recipe from my grandmother’s favorite recipe book. 

Do you ever have a week that once Sunday rolls around, you say “Thank you Jesus, THAT week is over!”?. That’s pretty much how I feel about the entire month of July. Thank you Jesus, that MONTH is over. Between the heartbreak in the community following the senseless shootings, health issue uncertainties, and walking my father through a 30+ year delayed annulment (I could go on for days about how ridiculous I think THAT process is), I’m happily bidding July farewell and crossing fingers, toes and elbows that August brings less drama.

On one particular day during the past few weeks, I found myself feeling quite in the dumps.  I had just left the cardiologist’s office following an Echocardiogram and while I told my husband I was fine attending my appointments alone….by the 3rd day of testing, I was lonely. And while I knew that my condition wasn’t life threatening, I was afraid.

 I hadn’t blogged in an entire week and while usually, I happily jot down some upcoming post ideas- the mere thought of making, baking, or crafting made me want to crawl into a hole and hide. Deadlines only made want to procrastinate and hide even more. I have questioned why I continue to keep this blog up in the first place. Aren’t all the recent surveys indicating that blogging is dead anyway? I digress.

But then my dad called to ask me how my appointments were going and said “You know what you might like to have right now? Your grandmother’s sorority cookbook. She loved that thing.”

Sidenote: How cool that with adult coloring all the rage these days, that they were doodling cookbook covers back in the 1970’s.

If you have either of my cookbooks, you’ll see that both my dedications include my Grandmother Eloise. She was, and continues to be my greatest inspiration. She was strong, educated, independent, and the kindest person to grace this earth. She was fearless in her pursuit of accomplishing whatever she put her mind to. She never let me sit around and feel sorry for myself. She always said “Aimee, you did the best you could do at the time. Now brush yourself off and get back on the horse”. I miss her daily.

Flipping the pages of her beloved ADK cookbook and seeing her handwritten notes gave me an overwhelming sense of pride and peace….and inspiration to get back into the kitchen.

I was intrigued by the recipe for Cajun Cake, mostly because of the name. Not entirely sure why it’s referred to as “Cajun”, but its inclusion of crushed pineapple, pecans and coconut was enough to encourage me to give it a whirl.

I changed a couple of things, mainly because when you bake in a 13×9 baking dish, it’s hard as heck to photograph it in a way that will do the cake justice…regardless of how delicious it is.  So I upped the baking time (about 15 minutes or so) and baked it in a bundt cake pan. All was going along swimmingly until I whipped together the icing. Not sure if I didn’t boil it long enough, but that stuff was a bit runny. Which made me question why I wasn’t smart enough to know that I shouldn’t have baked the thing in a bundt pan, when the recipe calls for pouring the icing. I could see the recipe, in its original state, being a bit like a poke cake.

But since I was bundting, I drizzled only half of the icing onto the cake and served the remaining icing warmed alongside the cake for extra drizzle if desired.

I also omitted adding the coconut flakes in the icing and instead lightly toasted my flakes and sprinkled on top once the icing had been poured.

This cake.

This Crazy Delicious Cajun Bundt Cake.

Y’all.

I just can’t even find the words to adequately describe it.

Moist. Delicious. Rich. Decadent.

All those things.

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Crazy Delicious Cajun Bundt Cake

Yield: 8-10

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 55 minutes

Adapted from the Cajun Cake recipe found in the LA Alpha Delta Kappa sorority cookbook dated 1972. A rich, moist, irresistable cake perfect for potlucks!

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Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 large can (20 ounce) crushed pineapple
• Icing:
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 stick butter
• 1 (5 ounce) can Pet milk (evaporated milk)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup pecans, chopped
• 1 cup coconut

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Grease and flour a 10-inch Bundt pan or spray with Baker's Joy non-sticking cooking spray that includes flour.

To make the cake:

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Add sugar, then eggs, 1 at a time. Fold in pineapple. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 45 to 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean and the edges begin to brown and pull away from the pan.

Allow cake to cool for at least 10 mintues, then turn out onto a wire rack or cake stand to cool completely.

With the oven still heated, spread shredded coconut onto a baking sheet in an even layer and toast for about 3 mintues.

While cake is cooling, make the topping:

Combine sugar, butter, evaporated milk and vanilla in a medium saucepan, and boil slowly for 5 to 6 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in pecans. 

Place cake on a cake stand with extra room (for runaway topping). Pour half of topping over entire cake while cake is still hot. Use remaining topping to serve alongside cake for extra drizzle. Sprinkle toasted coconut on top of cake. 

Makes 8-10 servings.

I’ll leave it up to you as to which pan you elect to use. I will say, though, that if you bundt it like I did, you’ll want a cake stand with a bit of a lip on it- otherwise that icing will drip right off and you’ll have a mess on your hands. I also found that popping it into the refrigerator for a minute or two will help harden the icing a bit.

Also hiding in the cookbook was a hand written recipe for “Lettie’s Broccoli“.  Lettie was my grandmother’s sister in law and she used 10 tablespoons of butter, 5 eggs and a medium jar of Cheese Whiz in her Broccoli Casserole. WHAT?!?! That one is getting made this weekend.

I’ll share it, too!

Thank you for enduring this sappy post. I like to keep things all rainbows and butterflies over here, but sometimes, there’s some bees behind those butterflies too. Just gotta find the honey on those days.

There’s always honey.