A Bundt Cake Beginner

A few weeks ago I was walking past my local charity shop and in the window was this gorgeous Nordicware Bundt pan for only £5! I couldn’t help but buy it especially as the shape was off Christmas trees and I am Christmas addict.

Once I got it home I realised I had never made a Bundt cake before so I enlisted the help of lovely tweeters to find a good recipe. I was directed to the wonderful site of Dolly Bakes a bunt addict who I have renames the Bundt Queen.

Rachel (Dolly Bakes) has the most amazing collection of recipes (and Bundt pans in amazing shapes). It was really hard to pick which one to start with so I chose a simple Toffee and Choc Chip recipe but changed it to Vanilla and Choc Chip. Maybe it was a bit risky changing a recipe before I’d ever tried it but never mind

I tried using the Christmas tree pan and I will straight away that it didn’t work but I know why – I didn’t grease the tin well enough.

My best advice now from this learning curve is to melt a little butter and use a pastry brush to paint the butter everywhere and then sprinkle with flour – the flour also works really well to help you see where you might not have buttered and where the mixture could get stuck. Also I found that using all the ingredients at room temperature when I started made the cake rise far better when it went in the oven.

I also mixed this by hand as a I haven’t got a mixer, so it can work with arm power.

Here is my recipe for Bundt cake based on the Toffee Bundt recipe at Dolly Bakes.

Vanilla and Choc chip Bundt

Ingredients:

• 225g butter

• 450g golden caster sugar

• 4 medium eggs

• 350g plain flour

• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 250ml plain/vanilla yogurt

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 150g of chocolate chips

Method:

1. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a pan or microwave and using a pastry brush, brush the melted butter on the tin making sure you cover everything. Dust the tin with flour.

2. Preheat the oven to gas 3/160 c

3. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.

4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. You’ll see the mix get noticeably fluffier – especially with all ingredients at room temperature.

5. In a separate bowl, measure out the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt.

6. Pour the yoghurt and the extract into the creamed ingredients and mix well.

7. Sift in the flour in a bit at a time. Mix this slowly until all the flour has disappeared. As soon as it is well mixed in stop mixing.

8. Pour half the mix into the greased and floured tin. Push into any nooks and crannies! Bang the bang on a hard surface to get rid of any air bubbles.

9. In the half left stir in the chocolate chips, ensuring even distribution and add to the floured pan. the chocolate chips can sink a little and this helps them not sink to the bottom too quickly.

10. Bake in the centre of the oven for about 1 hour 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. It’s stable from about an hour in if you want to check or turn it around. The best trick for seeing that is completely done is that the cake will start to shrink inwards away from the metal tin when it’s done.

11. Leave the cake to cool for about 5 minutes before removing from the tin.

Butter and sugar

Adding the chocolate chips

The first bundt in a proper bunt pan

Even deciding the mixture and adding the choc chips to the second half they still sank slightly to the bottom of the tin.

The wonderful bundt cake sliced up for my dad to take to Wimbledon tennis.

I hope enjoy making bundt cakes too

Happy Baking x

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