What do you do when you end up with a surplus of kumquats taking up space in your fridge?

Sure, you could certainly… well, just eat them. Delicious, sweet and sour, and packed with awesome health benefits, including essential oils and fiber, potassium, calcium, vitamin C, beneficial fats, and vitamin A. Some of those benefits include aiding digestion (they pack a whopping 10g of fiber per 8 kumquats); boosting immunity (perfect for flu season!) and skin, hair and vision health..  and more!

Instead of only eating the small produce section that’s been accumulating in my fridge, I got to Googling and stumbled on a delicious-sounding cake from Carroll Pellegrenellion The Spruce: Tangy Kumquat Bundt Cake with Kumquat Glaze

The use of a kumquat puree really intrigued me – I love that the entire fruit is edible!

The result? A super-moist, tangy and delicious cake with awesome texture from the almonds (though you could certainly leave out if you prefer or have a nut allergy).

Now, excuse me while I go grab another slice…

Kumquat Bundt Cake with Glaze

• Servings: 16
• Time: 100 minutes
• Print

Credit: thespruce.com

Ingredients

For the cake:
• 2-1/2 cups flour
• 1-1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon ginger (ground)
• 1/2 cup butter (softened)
• 1-1/2 cups sugar (granulated)
• 2 eggs
• 1-3/4 cups kumquat (seeded, pureed, divided)** NOTE: For me, this was equal to approximately 2 pints of whole kumquats, pureed
• 1 cup almonds (sliced, very lightly toasted)
For the glaze:
• 1 cup sugar (powered)
• 2 tablespoons butter (softened)
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Directions

For the cake:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Toast almond slices, if needed.
2. Grease and flour a 12-cup bundt cake pan or 12-1 cup mini bundt cake pans.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and ground ginger with a wire whisk.
4. In a large bowl, cream 1/2 cup butter and the granulated sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each egg. Beat the egg mixture until well combined. 5. Finally, beat in the 1-1/2 cups Kumquat Puree .
5. Once combined, start to gradually add the flour mixture. Completely incorporate the flour into the kumquat mixture.
6. With your hands, crush 1/2 cup of the almonds. Hand stir in the nuts into the cake batter. Carefully pour the Kumquat Bundt Cake batter into the prepared pan.
7. Bake the cake for 50 to 60 minutes until cake tester is clean. Cool it in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove the cake from the pan and completely cool it before adding the glaze.
For the glaze:
8. To make the glaze, melt and cool remaining 2 tablespoons butter.
9. In a medium bowl, combine the melted butter, 1/4 cup remaining pureed kumquats, all of the powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon of the lemon juice. Stir the mixture until sugar is completely melted. Add a little water, if necessary to get a better drizzling consistency.
10. Once the proper consistency is acquired, drizzle the glaze on the Kumquat Bundt Cake.
11. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup (un-crushed) almond slices on top.

A couple of notes on  my experience with this recipe, first — it took approximately 2 pints of kumquats to make the amount of puree needed for this recipe. And while, seeding and pureeing 2 pints of these little buggers might seem tedious…it’s worth it, IMO. The easiest way I found to remove the seeds without making a huge mess and losing any of that precious juice (or also losing my mind), was to cut all of the kumquats in half and then place a small strainer over the bowl of my food processor and SQUEEEEEZE. The seeds pop out rather easily (usually 3-4 a fruit) – and that way you’re keeping all that juice and pulp for the puree. 

Additionally, I tried this as a large bundt this time around and it took just over 50 minutes to cook through so I can’t comment on how long the tiny bundts might take. If you go that route, I’d suggest testing them earlier rather than later — better safe than sorry! Either way, the puree gives a lot of moisture to this cake — so could be potentially pretty forgiving.