Eevee is my absolute favorite Pokemon. I just love a Pokemon that can become anything it wants when it grows up. Eevee can become a mermaid, a bolt of electricity, a living icicle, or even cover itself with ribbons! I adore all of the Eeveelutions(Umbreon is my favorite though), but Eevee itself just has a ton of charm. For this recipe, I wanted to go with more earthy flavors, just to better capture Eevee’s color palate, so I went with a brown butter-coffee bundt cake, and used brown sugar and Ovaltine to accent everything. What I love about bundt cake for this application is that it offers a nice, round base on which I can add things on top of it. The holes surprisingly does not get in the way of the Eevee heads I’m topping the cakes with, but rather, catches them and holds them in place. There is also a white chocolate-cream cheese mousse, that is meant to be an homage to classic bundt cake frostings, which are usually cream cheese-based. The ears are just almonds that I brushed with edible paint to finish(yes, a very arts and crafts kind of way). The cake is loosely mocha-almond-fudge in, between the flavors I chose and the garnishes that were selected to go along with them!

Beyond just the aforementioned cake and frosting, we also have an Ovaltine whip for Eevee’s head, and I used almonds for Eevee’s ears(which worked hilariously well). The eyes are just chocolate pearl sprinkles, while the noses are edible paint. The frosting, I probably would have struggled less with piping it if I wasn’t also recording(I found that holding the bundt cake in one hand and then piping worked nicely, but getting the right angles to record that on camera was tricky), but you can shape it with water to better resemble Eevee itself! For the tails, I used brown sugar shortbread, and just piped more of that cream cheese cream onto it to form the gradient. Overall, I was probably 70% happy with the end result – most of the cakes look like Eevee , but I just wish I was able to keep the color of the cake to the cream to the almonds to the tail more consistent, because I wanted them to all look like they were part of the same Pokemon, and not just randomly a tint or tone different. That being said, if I ever do a 2.0 on these, I’ll probably lean into the mocha almond fudge flavor more, just because that will be one way to guarantee that everything is the same color! Overall, these cakes were a super quick bake(I had them made and assembled/decorated within an hour), and they were fun to make!

For the brown butter-coffee cake batter:
4 tbsp unsalted butter
1/4 cup milk
1 tbsp vinegar
1/4 cup cold brew coffee
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

In a nonstick pan, heat up butter on medium heat until it fully melts and turns amber in color(there will be a lot of bubbling and possibly popping and fizzing, so be wary of that!). Pour the butter into a bowl with the milk and add to that the vinegar, coffee, and vanilla. Sift into that the other ingredients and stir to form your batter. Pour into cooking spray or oil- lined mini bundt cake molds and bake at 350 degrees F for 18 minutes. Allow the cakes to cool down completely before attempting to remove.

For the brown sugar shortbread:
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
a pinch of salt
1 tbsp milk or water

In a bowl, mix together your flour, butter, sugar, and salt first until a very loose and crumbly dough forms. Then pour the milk/water into the dough, mixing until just combined. Refrigerate for 10 minutes first, then roll out on a floured surface to about 1/8-inch thickness. Cut out tear drop or diamond shapes from the dough. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes. Allow the shortbreads to cool down completely before using.

For the white chocolate-cream cheese:
1 tsp gelatin powder + 1 tbsp cold water
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup white chocolate chips
a pinch of salt
4oz cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup heavy cream, whipped stiff

In a pot, melt down your gelatin with milk, white chocolate, and salt. In a separate bowl, whip the cream cheese until soft. Once everything in the pot is melted together, pour it into the bowl with the cream cheese, one fourth of the mixture at a time, while whisking until combined. To the cream cheese, fold in the vanilla first, then fold in the heavy cream. Transfer to a piping bag with a round tip and keep refrigerated, allowing the mixture to firm up for at least 1 hour.

For the malted Ovaltine whip:
1/3 cup heavy cream
1g xanthan gum
1 tbsp Ovaltine powder
1 tbsp malted milk powder
2 tbsp confectioner’s sugar
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Whip everything to stiff peaks. Keep refrigerated.

To garnish:
2 tsp cocoa powder
2 tsp clear alcohol
Almonds
Chocolate pearl sprinkles

In a bowl, mix the cocoa powder with alcohol to form an edible “paint”. Brush the paint onto almonds to form Eevee’s ears first. Reserve the rest of the paint, as you’ll be using that for the noses. To assemble the Eevees, start by piping on the white chocolate-cream cheese mixture first, on top of the cakes, to form Eevee’s collar. Dip your fingers into water and shape the mixture as necessary. Scoop the Ovaltine whip on top, then garnish with the almonds(ears), sprinkles(eyes), and dot on the paint to make the noses. For the tails, pipe a tsp-sized dot of the cream cheese onto the shortbread, and press them onto the backs of the Eevees.