52 Weeks of Baking: Week Eighteen.

Vanilla Bunt Cake

Something I have been desperate to try since taking this challenge is a bunt tin. Using moulds for baking is the simplest way to make something look extravagant and impressive with little effort in sculpting it to said shape. Well, so I thought. Using the mould was not as easy as I had hoped. My mum has never got this recipe to turn out right either, which is comforting since she is the Queen of baking.

The cake itself is the most delicious vanilla cake. It’s a large, wet mixture that needs about an hour to cook. And can be eaten within seconds of serving..it’s that good! The recipe is from Nigella Lawson’s Christmas book.

225g Soft Butter
300g Caster Sugar
6 Eggs
350g Plain Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Bicarb of Soda
250ml Fat Free Yoghurt
4 Teaspoons Vanilla Essence
Icing sugar to dust.

6 Eggs are used in the mixture, which makes this an excellent recipe to use up eggs. And also if you have hens! I found the batter needed a lot more mixing than I had assumed, which was a note my mum had scribbled on the page too. <3.

I am still setting out to challenge myself to successfully use the bunt tin for another recipe at another time. Nigella herself tells you to hold your breath whilst you turn it upside down and she was right that it was somewhat difficult to extract the cake!  The cake is mouth-wateringly delicious whether it is intact or not and looks beautiful dusted with icing sugar. I am interested in cake moulds now…do they have a secret to working? It seemed that no matter how much I greased the tin and left the cake to cool, it was just as stubborn and didn’t budge.

This is all part of the 52 weeks of baking process. And despite not doing anything too demanding prior, it’s nice to tackle something difficult and know that I still have SO much to learn. Which, to me, is rather exciting. x