Banana and Blueberry Baby Bundt Cakes

Ah, the alliteration in this title tickles my language-loving heart. And it wasn’t even on purpose! Except for the “baby”. The original plan was “mini bundt”.

Anyway.

I’ve had a very productive weekend! I’ve been saying for months now that I want to redo the blog’s entire recipe index: I wanted to divide the index into categories and have a picture for every recipe instead of just a list of titles. And I finally did that this weekend! I’m pretty proud of how it turned out, I must say, so I’d love for you to take a look. While I was at it I also completely redid my About Me page, because when I read back what I wrote in 2013 I might have cringed a little bit.

And then there was this bake! Those of you who follow me on Twitter might remember that I bought a couple of mini bundt cake tins on sale a while ago, and I decided to use them for the first time this weekend. For the flavours I used the fruits I had lying around, namely banana, blueberry and lime. The lime isn’t in the title of this post, but it was already getting quite long, so I decided to sacrifice it. It happens. Plus, the whole “B”thing. You guys get it.

I whipped up these mini bundt cakes in no time, and apart from being freaking adorable they’re also really tasty! The glaze adds some lovely colour as well as moisture (I might have overbaked these a little) and it’s just a perfect little snack to go with a cup of tea. If you want to bake more than 6 of these you can easily double the recipe, but I’m not sure if doubling will be enough for one large bundt cake. It might be! Let me know if you try that. In any case, I hope you enjoy these!

Also, apparently this is my 300th post on the blog! How cool is that?

You’ll need… (for 6 mini bundt cakes)

For the cakes

• 80 g sugar
• 60 ml sunflower oil
• 1 medium egg
• ½ teaspoon vanilla flavouring
• 1 ripe banana
• zest of half a lime (for extra tanginess: add the juice too)
• 125 g plain flour
• a pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

For the glaze

• 50 g blueberries (preferably frozen)
• 70 g powdered sugar
• a few drops of lemon juice

Equipment (other than bowls, whisks and spoons)

• a grater
• sieve (and optional: food processor: check step 8 for why you might use this)
• tin(s) for 6 mini bundt cakes
• and an oven, of course! These bundt cakes need to be baked at 170 °C (don’t forget to preheat your oven!)

So, let’s get baking!

1. Mix together oil and sugar Put the oil and the sugar together in a bowl and mix them together with a whisk for about 1 or 2 minutes.

2. Add egg and vanilla to mix Crack your egg into the mixture and add the half a teaspoon of vanilla flavouring as well. Whisk it through until it’s all evenly mixed.

3. Mash banana and mix through Take a plate and mash your ripe banana using a fork. When it’s completely mashed with no big lumps, add the banana to the batter and whisk it through until you’ve got a smooth batter.

4. Add lime zest (and juice) Now, grate half a lime and add the zest to your batter. After tasting these lovely baby bundts I came to the conclusion that adding the juice of half of that lime might have added just a bit more tanginess to this very sweet cake, which is why I’m providing that as an option in this recipe too! I haven’t tried it myself, but I think it’d taste great. If you don’t enjoy lime that much or are a sucker for sweetness you could just leave out the juice, though. It still tastes wonderful!

5. Add flour, baking powder and salt Sieve the flour and baking powder above your bowl and also add a pinch of salt, then mix everything through with a spoon or spatula until it’s just combined. Don’t mix for too long or your cakes might come out tough.

6. Divide batter over tins Carefully grease (baking spray, oil or butter) and flour your mini bundt tins. I just sprayed mine with some baking spray and didn’t flour them and I had quite a bit of trouble getting them out in one piece (one of them sadly didn’t make it) so make sure to do this right! Then, divide your batter over the tins and smooth out the tops.

7. Bake! Bake the baby bundts for about 25-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave them to cool in their tins for 10 to 15 minutes and then carefully manoeuvre the cakes out of the tins and let them cool on a cooling rack.

8. Make the glaze You want to glaze the cakes when they’ve completely cooled down, so start making the glaze once the cakes are almost at room temperature. For this glaze I used frozen blueberries that I bought fresh a week earlier (so fresh → frozen → defrosted). Using frozen ones makes making this glaze a lot easier, since the defrosted blueberries will be all squishy. Place a sieve above a bowl and press the blueberries through the sieve so that you end up with blueberry juice. If you are using fresh ones it might be easier to first process them with a food processor and then sieve the processed blueberry goo over a bowl. Add the powdered sugar to the blueberry juice and mix it through. I added a few drops of lemon juice for that extra zing, but you could leave it out if you don’t have lemon juice on hand.

9. Glaze the cakes Glaze the cooled down cakes in which ever way you like. I found that the amount of glaze was perfect for these 6 cakes, so I used it all up. A lot of it will flow of the cakes and onto your plate or work surface, though, but that’s okay. Just prepare for a sticky yet delicious mess.

And there you have it! Your own Banana and Blueberry Baby Bundt Cakes! The glaze will more or less set, but I took my pictures (and ate at least one of the cakes) before that. Enjoy!