Tips
• You can use a butter knife instead of an offset spatula for spreading the icing.
• Bulk food or cake decorating stores carry black decorating icing with attachable piping tips and paste food colouring, which yields a much brighter colour than liquid food colouring.
• You can use just about any 10-inch (3 L) Bundt pan, but ones with rounded ridges make the cakes easier to ice and look more pumpkinlike. There is a variety of cake pans available at houseware stores and through cooking equipment catalogues, such as Ashton Green and Wilton (or visit their websites at www.ashtongreen.com and www.wilton.com).
• Don't have time to make cake and icing from scratch? Use 1 box (520 g) best-quality chocolate cake mix for each Bundt cake and use 3 containers (450 g) vanilla icing, tinted as directed for the icing. Be aware that cake mixes and prepared icings currently contain trans fats.
Butter Icing
1-1/2 cups (375 mL) butter, softened
10 cups (2.5 L) icing sugar
1-1/4 cups (300 mL) whipping cream
1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla
• In bowl, beat butter with 2 cups (500 mL) of the icing sugar until smooth. Beat in remaining icing sugar alternately with whipping cream, making 3 additions of sugar and 2 of cream, until smooth and fluffy. Beat in vanilla. (Make-ahead: Cover and refrigerate for up to 24 hours. Let stand at room temperature for 1 hour and beat until smooth and fluffy before using.)
Makes about 6 cups (1.5 L).
