A Prelude to National Bundt Day

Wednesday is National Bundt Day.  This will be the 3rd year I've celebrated.  To prepare, I dug up this item I wrote the first time I celebrated National Bundt Day.  Enjoy:

Happy National Bundt Day (Or, Adventures in Cake Baking with Toddlers in Tow)
Originally written and posted on Facebook, November 15, 2010


Earlier today, I posted a link to The Food Librarian's National Bundt Day celebration.  Inspired, I decided to make a Banana Nutella Bundt Cake.  Ruhama and Amie, food bloggers extraordinaire, asked me to share my results.  Here goes:

Note: for the complete recipe, visit Food Librarian's page.

Step 1: Find the Bundt pan.  Hope that, because you are trying to sell your house and erase any trace of actual human beings living in your home, that you didn't box it up and put it in the storage unit.

Where, or where, could it be?

Step 2: Realize that when last used (probably sometime during the second Bush administration), the Bundt pan was not cleaned thoroughly by "someone" (me) and there's still some German Chocolate cake crusted on one edge.

Step 3: Do dishes.  Wash Bundt pan, and, for kicks and giggles, all the other assorted dirty dishes lying about.  Drain sink, dry Bundt pan.

Step 4: Refill sink with bubbles because your 2 year old is having a fit that you didn't let her play in bubbles and you know you can't bake when there's a 2 year old in full tantrum mode in the middle of the kitchen. 

Bubbles!

Step 5: Prep ingredients.  Realize the paddle attachment for your Kitchen Aid is - you guessed it - dirty from making cookies the other day and sitting in the dishwasher.  Remove from dishwasher and wash by hand, stealing bubbles from 2 year old's sink full of bubbles as neccesary.

Step 6: Mix dry ingredients.  Scoop Nutella into a bowl as directed.  Realize, with a sigh, that you are using up the last of the Nutella and your son won't have any for his toast the next morning.  Wonder now if the cake is worth it, or if you should just scrap it so he can have his toast with Nutella in the morning.  Decide that hormones trump a kid's ingrained breakfast patterns and you're PMS-ing and you NEED cake more than he needs toast.  (Debate about running to Target later in the day for the big tub o' Nutella.  Because while hormonal, you're also a mom who wants her kids to be happy.)

Mmmm...Nutella...

Step 7: Set aside empty Nutella jar to lick clean with a spoon later on.  It is that time of the month, after all.

Step 8: Hear 2 year old say "Mommy look at me!" and realize she's putting on a beard of bubbles.  And getting water all over the kitchen cabinets you paid $$$$ to have redone a few months ago.  Rethink your decision at Step 4.  Consider it was still a good idea, but drain the sink of water and hope that she doesn't eat too many more bubbles.

Step 9: Cream butter and sugar.

Step 10: Add eggs to batter.  Because you're slightly OCD about eggs and salmonella, wash hands thoroughly.

Step 11: Add bananas and yogurt (Or in my case, sour milk because we just don't have plain yogurt laying about. Strawberry-mango drinkable yogurt for the kids, yes; blackberry-pomegranate Activia for the grown-ups, yes; but no plain yogurt).

Step 12: Add flour mixture, mix until everything is combined.

Step 13: Scoop out 1 cup of the banana cake mixture and fold into Nutella.  Get Nutella mix on your fingers.  Find yourself ready to lick Nutella-y goodness off your fingers until your OCD kicks in again and whispers "salmonella..."  Wash hands again.

Smells and looks chocolatey, but it's not edible yet.  Unless you like salmonella pudding.

Step 14: Scoop plain batter into pan; realize as you do that one chunk of butter didn't cream with the sugar properly.  Consider (briefly! briefly!) chucking it all because it probably won't turn out, but no:  we want cake.  We need cake.  We sacrificed our son's breakfast Nutella for this cake.  We're gonna have cake, gol-darnit!

Step 15: Scoop Nutella batter on top of plain batter.  Swirl with a knife.  Be a tiny bit sad that it's not swirling just as you'd like it to.  And you can draw swirls no problem...they're one of your favorite doodles to draw when on hold.  That and 3-D boxes.  And stick people.

Swirled (not so much) batter ready to go in the oven.

Step 16: Ready to go in the oven.  Bake at 350 for 50 minutes.  Survey disaster left behind.  Clean it up, along with counters because there could be raw egg on them, and you're a little OCD about raw egg.

Step 17: When the timer goes off, use a toothpick to check for doneness while your 2 year old dances around the kitchen singing "I want cakey!  I want cakey!"  If the toothpick comes out clean, let the cakey cool for 15 minutes.

Step 18: Unmold to a plate.  Immediately notice what became of the un-creamed butter chunk (Note: I claim Uncreamed Butter Chunks as the name of my next band.) and that there is an obvious chunk of overly buttery cake that stuck to the pan.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar, trying (in vain, it turns out) to conceal your band-name-inspiring butter goof.

Finished product.  Wanna play "Spot the Butter Goof?"

Verdict: A great cake recipe.  Kind of crisp on the outside, very moist and flavorful on the inside.  Can't really taste the Nutella, per se, but there's definitely a nummy chocolate taste mingling with the banana.