Cookbook author and owner of Melbourne's Beatrix Bakes, Natalie Paull, has shared her recipe for a lime and yoghurt bundt cake, along with her '100% reliable' formula for cake goop – a mixture of flour, oil and butter that guarantees cakes release from tins without sticking.
The secret to unstuck bundts
Paull explains that cake goop, which she found on the internet, provides both release and enough sticking power to hold the batter as it rises and cools, without slumping. It also avoids the fine, white, dusty crust on the outside of the cooked cake. She notes that goop has a 100% untarnished release record in her kitchen.
If a small piece of cake sticks, she advises shimming it out with an offset spatula and patching it back on while warm. For a whole ring that sticks, she suggests cutting it into sections, prising each out, and placing them back on the cake, then drenching with icing sugar to hide the 'Franken-bundt's monster appearance'.
Recipe details and tips
The recipe calls for eggs to be warmed before cracking, as warmer-than-room-temperature eggs emulsify better into the creamed base, preventing a 'curdled' appearance. To warm them, submerge the uncracked eggs in hot tap water for five minutes. The cake keeps for three days covered at room temperature and freezes for up to three months.
For the cake goop, mix 20g plain flour (10% protein), 20g vegetable oil, and 20g unsalted butter (squidgy soft, at 22C) into a paste and brush into every nook of the bundt tin. For the batter, use 6 juicy limes, 400g caster sugar, 280g unsalted butter (soft, at 20C), 5 warmed eggs, 375g soft plain flour (8-9% protein), 2 tsp baking powder, ¼ tsp fine sea salt, and 240g plain yoghurt at room temperature. The lime syrup requires 250g lime juice and 300g icing sugar.
Baking and finishing
Preheat the oven to 170C/150C fan. Zest the limes and rub the zest into the sugar to release oils. Cream the butter and lime sugar for six to eight minutes until pale and fluffy, then add whisked eggs (weighing 250g) in three batches, beating for five minutes. Fold in sifted flour, baking powder, and salt alternately with yoghurt. Scrape into the tin and bake for 60-70 minutes until a skewer comes out clean (internal temperature 95C).
Make the syrup by whisking icing sugar with half the lime juice, then the rest. After baking, poke holes in the cake and spoon half the syrup over, waiting 10 minutes. Invert onto a plate, poke more holes, and brush with remaining syrup. Cool for 30 minutes before slicing.
This is an edited extract from Sweet Heart by Natalie Paull, with photography by Rochelle Eagle, available in Australia 1 September through Murdoch Books, $49.99.
