What's Baking?: Creamsicle Bundt Cake

I'm alive!  I haven't forgotten about the blog, I swear!  I had a REALLY busy spell at work, so I had to take a break, but I am (hopefully) back in action now!  And, I happen to be just in time for another What's Baking? challenge!

This month, Ange from The Tiny Tyrant's Kitchen challenged us to bake our favorite cocktail.  Um, yum!  This was right up my alley.  And, I knew right away what I wanted to make.  The Fiancé and I have been big fans of the flavored vodkas ever since they came our, but hands-down, our favorite one is whipped cream vodka.  We can go through a liter of that stuff embarrassingly quickly!  He loves to mix it with coke (tastes like vanilla coke) or strawberry soda, while my favorite mixers are root beer (mmmmm, root beer float) or orange soda (hello, creamsicle).  And when I saw this cherry lime cream cheese bread, I knew I could adapt the recipe to highlight the whipped cream vodka and orange flavors.  I ended up using orange juice in this recipe, so it's a much more natural orange flavor, but you could certainly use orange soda to get more of the creamsicle flavor.  This cake was a big hit, and The Fiancé enjoyed taking slices of it to work for breakfast!  I hope you like it as much as we did!

Creamsicle Bundt Cake (heavily adapted from My Baking Heart)

Cheesecake layer

• 16 oz cream cheese (reduced fat is fine), softened
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 Tbl. flour
• 1/4 c. whipped cream vodka

Cream together the cream cheese and sugar until smooth.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time.  Next, beat in the flour.  Finally, mix in the whipped cream vodka.  Set aside.

Cake layer

• 1 c. butter, softened
• 1 c. sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• Zest of 2 oranges
• 3 c. flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 2/3 c. orange juice (or orange soda)

Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time.  Beat in the vanilla extract and the orange zest.  In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.  Stir about half of this into the butter mixture, until just combined.  Mix in the orange juice.  Finally, beat in the remaining flour mixture until just combined.

Pour about half of the cake batter into a greased bundt pan.  Top with the cheesecake batter.  Cover with remaining cake batter, and carefully smooth the cake batter over the top so that none of the cheesecake batter is showing.  Bake at 350*F for ~70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Cool completely, and remove cake from bundt pan.

Glaze

• 3 c. powdered sugar 
• 2 Tbl. melted butter
• 3-4 Tbl. whipped cream vodka

Stir melted butter and about 2 Tbl. of whipped cream vodka into the powdered sugar.  Continue to add the whipped cream vodka, a little bit at a time, until glaze reaches a thick but pourable consistency.  Pour over top of the cooled cake.