Splendiferous Sweet Potato Bourbon Bundt Cake or I Am Thankful for Maple Syrup

Bundt cake dripping with sweet bourbon syrup - heaven!

As Jessy mentioned yesterday Friends Thanksgiving on Saturday was awesome. There was a lot of love in the room and a feast of fabulous food. We shared guilty pleasures that we're thankful for, so I randomly said I am thankful for maple syrup. Some people laughed but think about... aren't you too? :)

But I digress.

Sweet Potatoes in a cake. Go with me here peeps - this cake tastes like warm and spicy autumn happiness. Take an afternoon, put on your favourite CD (my mom and I rocked out to Neil Diamond) and enjoy the process.

The recipe I followed is taken from Martha Stewart's site - click here for the cake recipe, and here for the bourbon syrup recipe. What can I say, I'm feeling like a lazy typer this morning - plus there's a cute video of Bundt master Dorothy Dalquist when you follow the link that's helpful too. After you print out the recipe - come back to this post because....

Here's my secret tweaks:

Numero Uno: Use a smaller bundt pan. The recipe calls for a 10-12 cup bundt pan. I have a 6 cup one, so I only put three-quaters of the batter in hoping to avoid over-flowing. Nope. Could've used the whole batter in the 6 cup bundt pan. Ah well bake and learn.

Numero Dos: Having an extra bit of batter led to unexpected awesomeness in the form of sweet potato bourbon cupcakes. Delicious! Note on baking time: these only take about 25-30 minutes to bake. Poke with a raw spaghetti noodle roughly 20 minutes in and see if it comes out clean. Keep checking till your happy.

Numero Tres: Pumpkin spice. The recipe calls for it, I didn't have it. So - improvise! I used 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, and 1/2 tsp cloves.

Numero Four: I used brown sugar in the bourbon syrup - which ended up tasting really maple syrupy. (As aforementioned, that's a good thing) It also gave the syrup a great caramel colour.

Numero Five: I didn't do this, but thought of it later to make things even more over the top... warm up the extra bourbon syrup a bit before serving. Mmmm

Happy Baking!!