Do you like having picnics at the park? I didn’t when I lived in the Philippines, mainly because of the heat. When I moved to Australia, there are so many beautiful green spaces that it was just unacceptable not to have picnics! Don’t you agree?

Centennial park is such a great location, it has unlimited parking, a bicycle rental, a few playgrounds, BBQs, picnic tables, plenty of trees, a number of well-maintained gardens, coffee kiosks, and public toilets scattered around. It’s a great place to host a picnic. So I did just that, and it was a lovely sunny day perfect for a gathering with friends.

The food was simple and stress-free. I prepared salmon, green beans, chicken and pesto, plus a variety of desserts. The standout dessert was my version of Better than Sex Cake. Which I called Better than Anything because there were young children present and I didn’t want to be the bad aunt!

To be honest, I don’t get why anyone would say anything is better than sex, but this cake is better than any bundt I’ve made or had! So should I call it Better than Any Bundt? Hmm.. Yeah, I’m sticking with it! Better than Any Bundt!

The recipe is pretty easy, there are a couple of components, like the Chantilly cream, salted caramel and crushed flake bars. Read the notes section for substitutes and vegan option! Now here are some photos from our picnic!

Difficulty: Easy

Better than Any Bundt

Makes 1 x 10-cup bundt

Ingredients

    Chocolate Cake
    • Caramel sauce
    • Chantilly cream

Instructions

0/10 Instructions
    For the cake:
  • Preheat oven to 170C. Grease a 10-cup bundt pan with softened butter diligently then dust with cocoa powder.
  • In a large bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and bi-carb soda. Mix in salt and sugar. Make a well in the center.
  • Add the eggs, yogurt/sour cream, oil and vanilla and mix until smooth. Whisk in the boiling coffee. The batter will be runny, so don't worry.
  • Pour the batter in the pan and bake for 65 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Remove from oven and cover with a plate. Leave for 10 minutes.
  • Remove plate and gently pull the sides of the cake away from the pan. Invert the cake onto a cooling rack and it should slide out easily. Cool completely.
    • Make the caramel
  • Place sugar in a heavy-based sauce pan. Leave it on medium heat until it melts and starts to colour.
  • Once sugar turns amber quickly whisk in the diced butter. If it separates, remove from heat and keep whisking. Once it comes back together return to the burner and cook for 1 minute.
  • Turn heat off then add the cream slowly. It will sputter so be careful. Then add the salt and cool down.
    • Make the Chantilly cream
  • With a cold and cold whisk, whisk the cold cream until stiff but doesn't look grainy. Whisk in the vanilla until incorporated. Set aside in the fridge.
    • Assembly
  • Once the cake is completely cool, pour the cooled down caramel sauce in the middle of the bun then cover with the whip cream. Drizzle remaining caramel sauce on top with the chunks of flake bars.

Notes

  1. You can use other chocolate that you like, I've tried Malteser and Twix
  2. Sour cream and yogurt work well in this cake, although I like the result with yogurt better.
  3. For a vegan version: replace the cream with plant-based cream for the Chantilly cream and the caramel, replace the butter with Nuttelex, the flake bars with vegan chocolate bars and use my vegan chocolate cake recipe here.
  4. For tips on preventing your bundt cake from sticking, please read this post.

Tags

#beautiful cake recipes  #better than sex bundt  #better than sex cake  #better than sex cake recipe  #bundt cake  #bundt cake recipes  #cake  #chocolate  #chocolate cake  #chocolate recipes  
There’s so much available citrus recently, so I have buckets of lemons, navel oranges and cara cara to consume, so pardon my very colourful citrus bundt cake series, I’m obsessed with how simple bundt cakes are to make and so easy to photograph! I’m working on a video talking about tips on baking the perfect bundt without tears, so if you’re having problems with your bundt cake, watch out for that video.

Now about the recipe, if you’ve made my lemon drizzle cake, this recipe should be straightforward. It starts by creaming the butter and sugar together, adding the yolks, the lemon zest, and alternating between the dry ingredients and the sour cream finishing with the dry ingredients and blueberries. I dredge the blueberries in the dry ingredients so they don’t sink, and also so I don’t overmix the batter. Then it’s just bake at 175C for 50 minutes or until done.

Again, just a couple of bundt cake baking 101. If you have an intricately designed bundt pan, similar to mine or even more, make sure you follow my tips on the recipe about buttering the pan well and placing a plate on top after baking. The plate traps heat and creates steam inside which helps release the sides of your cake. Don’t worry, your cake will not end up being soggy at all.

This cake is packed with so much good stuff! I used lemons, which are rich in vitamin C, and blueberries which is a superfood. All in all, this cake is delicious, bursting with flavour, easy to make and oh so pretty! I mean, check out that sexy glaze right there.

The recipe is very detailed, but if you have any issues, please comment below and if you post photos of your goodies online, I would love to see them, so please tag @mrs.fancypants.recipes on social media or use #mrsfancypantsrecipes. Lastly, if you don’t have a bundt pan, no worries! This recipe can be baked in 1 large loaf pan, too. Now put your aprons on and preheat your ovens. Happy baking!

 
Difficulty: Easy

Glazed Blueberry Cake

Makes 1 x 10-cup bundt cake or 1 large loaf cake

Ingredients

    For the cake
    • For the glaze:

Instructions

0/9 Instructions
  • Measure all your ingredients then preheat oven to 175C. If using softened butter, grease your bundt pan now. Do this by brushing the bundt pan with the softened butter using a small pastry brush, being careful to get the butter into each nook and cranny. Sprinkle flour over the butter and tap around lightly to distribute. Turn pan over and tap lightly to remove excess flour. If you're using melted butter, DO NOT GREASE YOUR PAN YET.
  • Sift flour, salt and baking powder together. Set aside.
  • In the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment on medium-high, cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
  • Add eggs one at a time, incorporating well after each addition. Turn mixer down to low then add lemon zest.
  • Add half of the flour mixture gradually using a spoon, mix well. Add sour cream then mix until incorporated. Put the blueberries in with the rest of the flour then toss until the blueberries are covered in flour. Fold in the blueberries and flour into the batter. Set aside.
  • If you're using melted butter, make sure its not hot. Brush the bundt pan with the butter using a small pastry brush, being careful to get the butter into each nook and cranny. Sprinkle flour over the butter and tap around lightly to distribute. Turn pan over and tap lightly to remove excess flour.
  • Pour cake batter into the pan. Bake for 50 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean. When cake is ready, remove from oven and cover with a large plate for 10 minutes. Use kitchen mitts to invert pan and remove cake. Your cake should slide out perfectly.
  • When cake is completely cool, make the glaze by placing the frozen blueberries, water and lemon juice in a sauce pan. Cover and cook on low heat until blueberries are very soft. Strain the juices and push as much liquid out of the blueberries as you can. Reserve the liquid and throw out blueberries.
  • Place the icing sugar in a bowl then add half the liquid. Mix until you get a glaze consistently, adding more liquid if needed. Drizzle on top of your cooled down cake. Finish with a dusting of icing sugar.

Notes

  1. You can substitute yogurt or creme fraiche.

Tags

#beautiful cake recipes  #blueberry recipes  #bundt cake  #bundt cake recipes  #easy cake  #easy recipe  #lemon recipes  

Let’s be honest, intricate bundt cakes look so amazing. But there’s always that risk that because the design is so intricate your cake will get stuck. If you are a bundt cake pro, please keep doing what you’re doing, because why fix what’s not broken? Now if you’ve had bundt cake stuck in the pan several times and you’re ready to give up, please give this recipe a try before totally throwing your beautiful pan out.

Here are a few key things to remember:

  1. Softened butter is my preference when it comes to greasing bundt pans. Softened means you can make a dent in the butter even with just a slight pressure. Use a small pastry brush and get the butter into each nook and cranny. Take your time.
  2. When you’re satisfied that every millimetre is buttered up, sprinkle flour on top of the butter and lightly tap to distribute the flour. Cover all of the buttered surface then turn your pan over and tap lightly to remove the excess flour. Your pan should look like the one below:

3. Now like any cake, you know the cake will come out if the cake is pulling away from the pan.

Note the photos below:

  • Slightly pulling away
  • This looks stuck

Now here’s the golden ticket! This tip is a bundt cake game-changer! Once you remove the pan from the oven, cover the pan with a bigger plate and let sit for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, invert the pan and your cake should slide right out.

If you don’t have a bundt pan, this recipe works in a large loaf pan too! Some key notes if you’re using a loaf pan:

  1. It’s the same baking time and temperature.
  2. You don’t have to use butter and flour to grease the pan, I simply use spray oil and line the tin with baking paper.
  3. You don’t need to cover the pan with a plate after removing from the oven, just cool it down completely in the pan.

Finally, I adapted this recipe from Spruce Eats’ Sour Cream Lemon Cake. What does “adapt” mean? I added some of my own touches like:

  1. I use metric measurements when baking because I weigh everything, but I’ve tested the US measurements in this recipe too.
  2. I prefer using creme fraiche instead of sour cream (and yogurt) because after testing all three, I found the cake using creme fraiche had the nicest crumb, flavour and moisture even without the syrup and glaze.
  3. I added another lemon for zesting to amp up the flavour in the cake itself
  4. I added a lemon-vanilla syrup mostly to use up the other lemon and in case you overbaked your cake, this will save it.
  5. Lastly, I used the juice from the other lemon in the glaze.

Surprisingly, the lemon flavour in the cake is not overwhelming, it’s just absolutely delicious and fresh. Now you know everything there is to know about this lemon drizzle cake. Time to take your whisks out and preheat your ovens and try this recipe! Please comment below if ou have any questions, and tag @mrs.fancypants.recipes on your Social Media posts. Happy baking!

 
Difficulty: Medium

Lemon Drizzle Cake

Makes 1 x 10-cup bundt cake or 1 large loaf cake

Adapted from Spruce Eats

Ingredients

    For the lemon cake
    • For syrup
    • For glaze

Instructions

0/15 Instructions
  • Measure all your ingredients then preheat oven to 175C. If using softened butter, grease your bundt pan now. Do this by brushing the bundt pan with the softened butter using a small pastry brush, being careful to get the butter into each nook and cranny. Sprinkle flour over the butter and tap around lightly to distribute. Turn pan over and tap lightly to remove excess flour. If you're using melted butter, DO NOT GREASE YOUR PAN YET.
  • Sift flour, salt and baking powder together. Set aside.
  • In the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment on medium-high, cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
  • Add eggs one at a time, incorporating well after each addition.
  • Turn mixer down to low then add lemon zest.
  • Add half of the flour mixture gradually using a spoon, mix well.
  • Add the creme fraiche (or yogurt or sour cream) then mix until incorporated.
  • Fold in the rest of the flour mix. Set aside.
  • If you're using melted butter, make sure its not hot. Brush the bundt pan with the butter using a small pastry brush, being careful to get the butter into each nook and cranny. Sprinkle flour over the butter and tap around lightly to distribute. Turn pan over and tap lightly to remove excess flour.
  • Pour cake batter into the pan. Bake for 50 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean. Meanwhile make the syrup.
  • Combine all the ingredients for the syrup in a small pan. Bring to the boil until sugar is dissolved and you get a slightly thick consistency. Cool down.
  • When cake is ready, remove from oven and cover with a large plate for 10 minutes. Use kitchen mitts to invert pan and remove cake. Your cake should slide out perfectly.
  • Make several small holes on your cake using a toothpick then brush the cake with the syrup. Leave to cool completely.
  • When cake is completely cool, make the glaze by placing the icing sugar in a medium bowl and whisking the lemon juice in. Start with half and keep adding until you get the consistency you want just be careful that you don't make the glaze too thin, test it by checking how quick it drips from your spoon. You want a slow drip to get that nice drizzle effect.
  • Leave the glaze to set for 10-15 minutes then your cake is ready to serve.

Notes

You can make this in a large loaf pan if you don't have a bundt pan. Here are some notes if you're doing this:

  1. It's the same baking time and temperature.
  2. You don't have to use butter and flour to grease the pan, I simply use spray oil and line the tin with baking paper.
  3. You don't need to cover the pan with a plate after removing from the oven, just cool it down completely in the pan.

Tags

#bundt cake  #cake  #citrus  #easy cake recipes  #lemon  #lemon recipes  

In my Strawberry Cheesecake Post I discussed what a ganache is, and mentioned that it has plenty of uses. My recipe today also uses a ganache but with a different ratio and I use this to glaze my Ube Butter Cake. Last time, I incorporated the ganache in the cheesecake to help it set and have form instead of using gelatine, this time I used it as a decorative topping to make my cake look lovely and also to enhance the ube flavour.

Now, the cake recipe today is baked in a 10-cup bundt pan. What is a bundt pan you say? Bundt pans are cake pans that look like donuts because they have a tube in the middle. They also have different designs that make your cake look spectacular (when you get the cake out correctly). You’ll see the bundt pan I have in my video below, but if you don’t own one and still want to make this cake, don’t fret! You can use a large loaf pan instead.

https://youtu.be/rXdGhEJcNTs

This cake is a variation of my vanilla butter bundt. I wanted to make an ube flavour to commemorate Filipino Food Month. Filipino flavours and Filipino food don’t tend to be as popular as other cuisine, and Filipino Food Month is the Government’s initiative to give it a push globally since Filipinos are all over the world. Now this cake is not traditionally from the Philippines, however, ube is a well-known native flavour of the Philippines. Ube is a root crop also known as purple yam. It’s colour gives desserts a vibrant pop but this doesn’t translate to a strong flavour, instead its flavour is very mild–a little nutty with a hint of vanilla. It is widely used in local desserts, and one day I will post an actual traditional Filipino ube dessert when I get my hands on fresh ube again. But for now, here is the recipe for this delicious and easy to make butter cake. Happy baking!

 
Difficulty: Easy

Ube Butter Cake

makes 1 x 10-cup bundt pan

   

Ingredients

    For the cake
    • For the glaze

Instructions

0/8 Instructions
    Make the glaze:
  • Place the white chocolate in a medium bowl.
  • Bring the cream to the boil then pour on top of chocolate. Cover and let sit for a minute. Stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until glossy.
  • Add ube. Stir until smooth. Set aside to cool.
    • Make the cake
  • Preheat oven to 170C. Mix yogurt, eggs and vanilla tin a medium bowl.
  • In your stand mixer bowl using a paddle attachment, mix together flour, sugar, b. soda and b. powder. Slowly add the liquid ingredients. Mix until smooth.
  • Add butter cubes one by one. The batter should look creamy. Grease your 10-cup bundt. Make sure you grease all the folds and edges for quick release.
  • Pour batter into the pan and bake for 1 hour or until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from oven. Cool for 10 minutes inverted on a wire rack.
  • The cake should separate from the bundt tin successfully. Pour the glaze all over and serve.

Notes

  1. If you do not have a bundt pan, this should also work with a large loaf pan.
  2. Grease your bundt pan well to make sure the cake come out easily. If it doesn't, try using a butter knife to loosen the edges of the cake as well as the middle tube.
  3. Keeps well at room temperature for 2 days, or in the fridge for 5 days. Always serve at room temperature.

Tags

#bundt cake  #cake recipes  #dessert  #filipino cakes  #filipino recipes  #ube  #ube recipes