Recipe video above. Perfect for a party, this combines two holiday favorites into one - a carrot Bundt cake with creamy cheesecake inside! A combination that everybody adores. Inspired by a cake spied on my friend Jennifer Sabin Sattley’s website, Carlsbad Cravings (love!).You will need 2 full blocks of cream cheese for this recipe. Take care with the glaze thickness - keep it thick so it blankets the cake generously. Not the usual thin see-through glaze. Feel so cheated!
Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F (180°C fan). Grease a 12-cup (3 litre) Bundt pan (Note 6) with butter, then dust well with cocoa, shaking out excess. (Why cocoa? See Note 2)
Prep pineapple - Drain pineapple in a colander, pressing out excess juice and reserving. Set pineapple and juice aside.
Cheesecake filling - Using an electric beater, beat the cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, lemon and vanilla just until smooth. Beat in flour, just until incorporated. Beat in egg until mixed in. Transfer cheesecake mix into a piping bag and refrigerate until required.
Batter - Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Set aside. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, vinegar, eggs, brown sugar, canola oil, and ¼ cup of the reserved pineapple juice. Whisk until smooth, then stir in the crushed pineapple, shredded carrot, coconut flakes, and walnuts, if using. Pour this over the flour mixture and gently stir until combined.
Assemble - Pour about 2 1/2 cups of batter into the Bundt pan. Cut a 1.8cm / 3/4" hole in the end of the piping bag. Pipe a ring of the filling directly on top of the batter—avoid touching sides of pan. Cover with remaining batter.
Bake for 30 minutes. Remove, cover loosely with foil and bake for another 30 minutes. Check with a skewer to ensure it's cooked (straight down into cheesecake, and also on the inner wall of the ring)
Glaze - Cool 20 minutes in the pan. Invert on to a rack and allow to fully cool. Spoon the glaze on top, allowing it to drip down the sides of the cake. Sprinkle with walnuts, if using. Cut with a hot knife (for neater slices) and serve!
Cream cheese glaze:
Beat butter, cream cheese, and vanilla until smooth. Beat in icing sugar in two batches, starting on a low speed first (to avoid powder storm!).
Adjust thickness - Beat in milk and lemon juice. Add extra milk 1 teaspoon at a time until it becomes a thick glaze - BE CAREFUL, it will go from too thick to too thin with just a tiny bit of milk! GOAL: a glaze you can spoon onto the cake, so it oozes thickly down the sides, rather than being thin and transparent like most glazes.
Notes
1. Pineapple - If you can only get pineapple in syrup, that's fine too. Be sure to press out excess liquid well otherwise batter will be a bit too wet. We will only use some of the liquid - reserve the rest for your morning smoothie!Crushed pineapple in the US commonly comes in 20 oz cans. Just use approximately 3/4 of the can. No need to be exact here, as long as you press out liquid well. Pineapple pieces / rings - chop it yourself and use per recipe!2. Cocoa powder is used to dust the pan to prevent the cake from sticking because it blends invisibly into the cake surface and you can’t taste it. If you use flour, you will end up with some visible white powder.3. Cream cheese - Spreadable cream cheese in tubs works too.4. Baking soda is ~3x stronger than baking powder and works better in this cake which benefits from the extra power to make it rise. It's a sizeable cake!5. Vinegar activates the baking soda to give it a kick start. Don't worry, you can't taste it.6. Bundt pan - You can also use a 10-cup (2.5 L) Bundt pan. Just remove ¾ cup of batter (and make cupcakes with excess!), and only use 2 cups batter in the base of the Bundt cake before adding the cheesecake filling.7. Leftovers will keep for 5 days in the fridge. Not sure about freezing, but instinct tells me the cake will go a bit too wet (it's a moist cake).Nutrition per slice, assuming 14 slices. Don't forget, there's vegetables and fruit in this which offsets the butter and sugar.😀