Colorful Funfetti Bundts

In the month of May, there were lots of birthday parties, celebrations, bake sales, Jamie Oliver´s Food Revolution Day, days off school and work and there were so many cupcakes, muffins, cakes and cookies to be baked that I was quite pleased to find a fun recipe (and a new one for me) on Laura´s lovely blog Baking in Pyjamas called Funfetti Cake. Laura is based in England and an avid and wonderful baker. With another three cakes to be baked for a bake sale at the primary (elementary) school sports event on Saturday, I did not hesitate too long before I decided to give Laura´s recipe for this colorful cake a try. I called the cakes Colorful Funfetti Bundts. The recipe calls for self-raising flour and luckily I had just replenished my stocks when visiting the Netherlands last week.

Funfetti cakes and cookies are not really known around here and I must say I never baked one before either. Of course, sprinkles on a cake are wonderful, but sprinkles baked inside was not something I had really considered before. This cake is a colorful confection that is easy to bake and it seems perfect for any celebration that involves at least a few little people.

I used round “Konfetti Sprinkles” from a well-known German manufacturer * that are available in many countries and they seemed to be the right kind of sprinkles for this cake. Nice, not too sweet and very colorful. Ususally, I am not the one to add food coloring to my baked goods but this cake looked so pretty and I knew that it would be a hit at the bake sale.

I decided to skip the seven minute frosting and bake two small Bundt cakes (6 cup capacity) instead of making a layered cake like Laura did. It seemed to me that Bundts are easier to slice at a bake sale and the weather was just so warm that I was afraid the cake would not to hold up for a few hours with a soft frosting (although the recipe for the frosting sounds delicious). I also decreased the amount of sprinkles to 100 grams and added a pinch of sea salt to the egg whites but other than that, I made no changes to Laura´s recipe.

My kids were delighted with the way the Colorful Funfetti Bundts looked like and were quite happy to take them to their bake sale on Saturday. This cake will certainly make a few repeat performances at our house, I am sure.

Colorful Funfetti Bundts
(Bunte Konfetti Gugelhupfe)

Ingredients for the Bundts

• 110 grams (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus some more for greasing the pans
• 300 grams (1 1/2 cups) superfine (caster) sugar
• 300 grams (2 cups) self-raising flour, plus some more for flouring the pans**
• 250 ml (1 cup) milk, room temperature (I used 3.5%)
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 100 grams (1 cup) sprinkles (I used one whole box of “Dr. Oetker Dekor Konfetti”)*
• 4 egg whites (L), free range or organic if possible (plus a few drops of lemon juice for the bowl - optional see NOTE in the recipe)
• a pinch of fine sea salt
• some powdered sugar (optional)

** Self-raising flour is widely available in Dutch and UK supermarkets. Outside these countries and the US, it is not commonly used. Self-raising flour will not keep for very long. The baking powder absorbs moisture from the air, which reacts with other ingredients in the flour, affecting its ability to rise.If you do not have self-raising flour, combine plain flour with baking powder and salt, or add raising agents (such baking powder or use bicarbonate of soda) separately in your recipe.

Equipment needed

two small Bundt pans (6 cup-capacity)

Preparation of the Bundt Cakes

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit).
2. Butter and flour two small Bundt pans, shake out the excess flour and set aside.
3. In the bowl of your electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment set to high speed, cream together the butter and the sugar until the butter mixture turns light and creamy. This will take between 5 to 8 minutes. Scrape down your bowl with a spatula as needed.
4. Using the medium speed of your mixer, starting and ending with the flour, add 1/3 of the flour, mixing until the flour just starts to disappear then add 1/2 the milk and vanilla and keep doing the same until everything has been added, taking care not to over mix the batter. 
5. Gently add the sprinkles and mix just until the sprinkles are incorporated into the batter.
6. Using the whisk attachment of your mixer, whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until soft peaks form. NOTE: to make sure that the egg whites whip up properly, use a very clean bowl. Following the advice of a much admired cook and baker, I always wipe out my bowl with a few drops of fresh lemon juice on a clean cloth before I start beating my egg whites.
7. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the cake batter until no traces of the white can be seen. 
8. Divide the batter equally between the two Bundt pans and bake for about 30 to 35 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the middle comes out clean.
9. Transfer the two Bundt pans to cooling racks and leave the cakes to cool for about 15 minutes before turning them out of their pans and transferring them to cooling rack to cool completely.
10. Dust with powdered sugar (optional).

To round out the very colorful theme of these cakes, it is nice to decorate the table with colorful plates and forks and to showcase some even more colorful glass cake stands and deck the Bundts with some colorful paper flags.

The kids told me that the Colorful Funfetti Bundts were very well received at their bake sale in school and I was very happy that this recipe worked out so well.

Many thanks to Laura for posting this fun recipe and another big fat thanks for writing such a wonderful and kind résumé about my blog as part of your blog post about my Rhubarb and Almond Bundt Cake!