Very Vanilla Bundt Cake

A bundt cake is essentially a cake baked in a bundt pan which creates a distinctive ring shape. I had a picnic coming up in Central Park so I knew I wanted to make a cake. I had previously bought some Madagascar vanilla bean paste to use in a cookie recipe and thought it would go perfectly in a pound cake recipe. Did it ever! I used 1 tablespoon and you can definitely tell the difference between this and the usual vanilla extract, as the paste has a sweet, creamy flavor with velvety after-tones and your cake will be sprinkled with the tiny black flecks of the vanilla bean. I love this vanilla bean paste. Do yourself a favor and go and buy some, it’s worth the extra dollars. I adapted this recipe from Allrecipes.com. One of my friends actually said to me ‘What is this?’ as she is so used to me baking chocolate cakes, that this vanilla one seemed strange. I then got told to ‘stick to my chocolate cakes’. hahaha…..no thanks, I like to mix it up sometimes and this cake was the perfect end to our picnic lunch. To each their own 😉

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste (I used Madagascar)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 10 inch Bundt pan. In a medium bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla bean paste.

3. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with 1 cup milk, mixing just until incorporated. Pour batter into prepared pan.

4. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. The cake will cook quicker in the bundt pan than a regular pan so be aware of this and check on it as it gets near the end of baking. Cool for 10 minutes and invert on a wire rack. Dust with powdered sugar if desired once completely cooled.