Dairy Free Summer Berry Bundt Cake

This bundt cake is a great cake to bake when you need to feed lots of people, and looks thoroughly celebratory filled with a riot of bright summer berries. It's called a bundt cake because it's baked in a special ring shaped tin, which is a sort of decorative mould with fluted sides. This dairy free recipe can also be made gluten free if you simply swop the plain flour for a gluten free one, and use gluten free baking powder instead of the cream of tartar. The lightness of this lovely recipe is mirrored by the delicate marbling of yellow and white in its crumb, and the sweet taste allows the tangy berries to take centre stage. A beautiful cake to make in the last sunny days before summer's end.

Recipe

Serves 12

Adapted from Sophie Grigson's great seasonal cookery book, Country Kitchen. Buy the book on Amazon here.

9 large egg whites

4 large egg yolks

1 tsp cream of tartar

150g plain flour

250g caster sugar

2 pinches salt

2 tsps vanilla extract

3 tsps finely grated lemon zest

1. Turn the oven 190C (170C fan ovens), and grease and flour a 25cm bunt tin or ring mould. Grigson says to leave it ungreased and unfloured, but trust me, after all the faff, prodding and elbow grease it took for me to prise this baked cake out of the bundt tin, you will want to prep it to avoid it sticking as it did with me! Perhaps a springform ring mould would be an easier baking option.

2. Put out 4 large mixing bowls. Sift the flour at least four times, using 2 of those bowls. In the third bowl, whisk the 9 egg whites and the cream of tartar and salt together until they form soft peaks.

3. Add most of the sugar to the egg white mixture, leaving aside just 2 tablespoons of sugar for later. Pour in the vanilla extract and whisk until the mixture is thick and shiny.

4. Fold in a third of the sifted flour to the egg whites, gently mixing it in until combined, then add the second part of it, mixing well, then the third part, until all the flour is stirred in.

5. In the fourth large bowl, beat the egg yolks and the reserved 2 tablespoond of sugar until yellow and thickened.

6. To the thickened egg yolk, stir in a third of the egg white mixture, and the lemon zest. 

7. Using a large spoon, place dollops of the egg white mixture into the prepared bundt tin, alternating it with dollops of the egg yolk mixture, so that the two nestle side by side and ontop of eachother in the tin.

8. Once all the egg white and the egg yolk mixtures are in the tin, place it in the oven for approx 35 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.

9. When the cake is done, gently turn the tin upside down and leave it to cool in the tin on a wire rack. Once totally cool, use a spatula or a fork to gently prise the cake away from the tin sides. This is where I had difficulty, hence the scuff marks you can see at the bottom of my cake where it stuck to the tin.

for the icing:

approx 250g icing sugar

2 tbsps lemon juice

1 or 2 punnets of mixed berries: raspberries, blueberries, or strawberries, all washed

10. For the icing, just mix the lemon juice into the icing sugar and beat with a fork until well combined and the consistency you want.

11. Pour the icing over the cake, and then fill the hole in the centre of the cake with berries, layering them also over the top if you like. Dust the berries with a little icing sugar and let the icing dry for half an hour before serving.

This cake was idly baked to the sounds of Karen Elson's album The Ghost Who Walks