nigella lawson vanilla spruce bundt cake for christmas

Bonkers for Bundt cakes this Christmas!

  • 6 years ago
  • Views : 1561
  • Ellen Ripa

Christmas is all about overindulging in sweet treats. We all love a sugar fix, and getting festive also means having a go at baking ourselves. Bundt tins are perfect for creating a beautifully shaped cake stress-free. And what’s more, they make a huge statement on the table at a Christmas meal! There are plenty of tins in a festive shape available, try Skandihome’s Gingerbread house tin or a more traditionally shaped Blossom bundt tin.

A Scandinavian favourite for cake at Christmas is the ‘Mjuk pepparkaka’ or soft ginger cake. We had a go at creating our own in IKEA’s Dalahorse baking tins, and the result was delicious! Just the smell of the gingerbread made us feel Christmassy. There is also a lovely recipe here that combines the Swedish lingonberry and frosting to make a Christmassy treat in a traditional round bundt shape.

If frosting isn’t your thing, then a simple dusting of icing sugar does the trick nicely, and makes for a beautiful snowy effect. Nigella’s ‘Spruced up Vanilla cake’ looks like a wintry forest – and a yummy wintry forest at that! Find her recipe below.

Ingredients

Makes: about 12 slices

Metric Cups

  • 225 grams soft butter (plus more for greasing)
  • 300 grams caster sugar
  • 6 large eggs
  • 350 grams plain flour
  • ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • 250 grams plain fat-free yoghurt
  • 4 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons icing sugar

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4/350ºF and put a baking sheet in at the same time. Butter or oil your large, regular or fir-tree shaped bundt tin (2.5 litres capacity / 2½ quart capacity) very, very thoroughly. (I use oil-sodden kitchen paper.)
  2. Either put all the ingredients except the icing sugar into the processor and blitz together; or mix by hand or in a freestanding mixer as follows:– Cream together the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy.– Add the eggs one at a time, whisking each one in with a tablespoon of flour.– Fold in the rest of the flour, and add the bicarbonate of soda, the yogurt and vanilla extract.
  3. Pour and spoon the mixture into your greased tin and spread about evenly.
  4. Place the tin on the preheated baking sheet in the oven and cook for 45–60 minutes until well risen and golden. After 45 minutes, push a skewer into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is cooked. Let it sit out of the oven for 15 minutes.
  5. Gently pull away the edges of the cake from the tin with your fingers, then turn out the cake, hoping for the best.
  6. Once cool, dust with the icing sugar pushed through a small sieve, to decorate: think fresh snowfall on the alps.