Strawberry yoghurt Bundt cake with smashed strawberry icing is not just a pretty pink thing. It’s a velvety, fragrant sponge cake, like the lightest strawberry pound cake with those lovely Bundt ridges dripping with fresh strawberry icing.
Beware the curdling gremlins!
I come from a baking family with my Grandmother, the masterly producer of brioches for breakfast, apple tarts in autumn and the lightest sponges that ever existed, and my mother who tried her best.
In the days before KitchenAids or even handheld devices butter used to be creamed with sugar by hand, using a wooden spoon and a special bowl with rough sides. Granny must have had mighty toned upper arms.
From those days I’d always known the bane of cake baking: curdling. Oh, no, the mix has curdled! wailed my mum (Granny not so often) and I understood that meant a write-off and no pudding. Indeed, the way the curdled batter looked did not inspire confidence in cake at the end of the tunnel.
Why things curdle
Curdling is a great phenomenon when you’re making cheese. It’s not so desirable in cake batters.
You beat the butter with sugar and it’s fluffy as anything. Then in goes the first egg and the beautiful smooth mixture turns into failed scrammies. The fat separates from the liquid, forms horrid lumps and the next egg doubles the trouble.
Baking smarty-pants claim it’s because of the difference in the temperature of the individual ingredients that causes curdling – that’s a load of nonsense.
I always use eggs, butter and everything at room temperature and my mixes still curdle away if they want to. Once you’ve added flour, things improve but apparently that is treating symptoms not the cause as a GBBO winner I’d never heard of snootily instructs.
So the only explanation is as above: gremlins.
Curdled? Just ignore it
I’d been living in terror of the c-word in the beginning of my baking career but gradually realised that curdling doesn’t matter. The mix can curdle all it likes and the cake will come out good, sometimes possibly better for it. So I pay no mind to the lumpy split of my batter and wait for the addition of the flour to smooth things out.
This cake is Curdle Central. It’s Split of Splits. It looks so bad for a time you might want to avert your gaze from the bowl.
But since even Yossy Arefi warns that the mix may curdle, in her recipe posted in NY Times Cooking which I used, it clearly isn’t the bogeyman I was raised to fear. At least in the cake mix: sauces, frostings and custards are an entirely different danger zone.
How to prepare Bundt tin
Bundt tin is shaped in a fluted ring and this shape allows the cake to bake evenly, without collapsing in the middle which is especially helpful in yeast-leavened cakes. Which is also where the tin and the shape originates: from German and Austrian Gugelhopf, a tall and impressive bread-cake, not unlike Italian panettone.
Bundt means ‘turban’ and that demonstrates the swirled, twisty shape of the tin. These days, especially in North America, is used to bake ordinary, baking powder-raised cakes and the tin is used only for show.
A Bundt cake looks indeed impressive but only if you take care to butter and flour every swirl and twist very carefully before pouring the batter in. Otherwise, and I speak from experience, the bottom of the baked cake might turn out with the top part firmly clinging to the tin.
How to make the cake batter
It’s an easy business if you, as advised above, completely ignore the curdle element. Butter with sugar, eggs added one by one, yoghurt – Curdle Central. All is saved by the added flour making the batter smooth and batter-like again.
It is best to spoon some batter into the prepared tin, so strawberries don’t mess release moisture and make the cake stick to the top of the Bundt. Then a layer of sliced strawberries may be added, followed by the remaining batter with the rest of the strawberries folded in.
Icing on the cake
It will be delicious with no icing, but it won’t quite look as pretty-pink if you skip the icing. And it’s very simple too: icing sugar beaten into strawberry puree.
More strawberry recipes
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Strawberry crumble cake, the easiest cake batter in the world thickly covered with fresh strawberries and finished with crunchy crumble topping. The only summer cake recipe you'll ever need.
Strawberry fool is the supreme of strawberries and cream, with layers of vanilla scented whipped cream and gorgeous fresh strawberry puree, barely sweetened.
More Bundt cake recipes
Doughnut cake, an old fashioned Bundt cake that tastes just like a giant doughnut. It's buttery and covered in crunchy sugar coating, but healthier than oil-fried doughnuts since it's baked in the oven.
Ciambella, Italian breakfast lemon cake shaped like a doughnut, with an occasional berry, is the Roman way to meet the day. With a cappuccino and a smile.
Raisin cake spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, baked in a Bundt tin. The cake is incredibly easy to make, with boiled raisins, no eggs and no milk; hence also called a wartime cake.