Caramel Chocolate Bundt

This caramel zebra bundt cake, with swirls of chocolate and vanilla running through it will have you coming back for a more! Perfect for afternoon tea, bake sales or just keeping to yourself!

And before we go any further, a bundt in the oven not a euphemism for anything... so stop getting excited!

In fact it's the second Bundt that's been in my oven in the last week, as I've become a little fascinated by the distinctive ring style cake. I suppose I should really call it a Bundkuchen (that's the German side of me); as Bundt is the trademarked name given to the pan style by Nordicware back in the 50s and 60s, although it's argued that it's too generic.

For me, however, it's bundkuchen that evokes the most memories. My Grandmother was German, and I always remember when we visited their house in Ireland (yep that's right Ireland), that there was always a 'ring cake' in the tin, and it was always a yellow cake with pink and green swirls throughout it. If we were lucky, there may have been chocolate it there as well, but it's the bright colours that I remember the most. My other Granny was a Victoria sponge Goddess, but it was my Nana who was the 'Bundt' Queen.

I've admired the Nordicware pans for sometime, but despite some fabulous designs and my bakeware addiction I've never felt a real need to buy one, especially as they rock in the lower end around £30.

Anyway, it was the lovely Jules over at Butcher Baker, that broke the Bundt pan void in my collection, when she mentioned on her Facebook page that the ever fabulous Aldi had a bargain £2.99 pan available the other weekend. Our nearest Aldi is in Swindon, so it probably cost me more in fuel than the cost of the pan itself; but I filled my basket to off set my erm... carbon footprint?!

The pan arrived at just the right time, with celebrations a plenty with our anniversary, mine and Ian's Mum's birthday all in one week. There was no reason not to have cake, or test drive the pan!

There are so many recipes for Bundt's out there; ideally I'd have loved my Nana's recipe but sadly is one that I never found out, and she took her secret to the grave with her. Jules' had test run her pan with success with a recipe from BBC Good Food. A quick glance through the recipe and it seemed to be fairly adaptable, so I gave a vanilla and chocolate swirled Bundt  with a chocolate glaze a whirl for Ian's Mum's birthday. I didn't have enough soured cream in the fridge so I substituted with crème fraîche, it worked a treat. Excellent, now it's my turn!

Now, it's me we're talking about so there's got to be chocolate involved, but my sweet tooth had been twitching ever since it spied the salted caramel sauce on Baking a Moment's Vanilla Malt Layer Cake. So I decided that whatever I created it HAD to have a caramel glaze. Up popped my version of my Nana's 3 colour Bundt... vanilla, caramel and chocolate.

There was lots of tweaking and changes and I kept with the crème fraîche. You might think that it's going to add too much wetness to the cake, and it will be far too squidgy but it's not!

What you do get is a moist cake, that's really melty; but it doesn't fall apart and it's not wet and sticky. It's actually just perfect for afternoon kaffee und kuchen, or post birthday dinner hangover breakfast!!

I'm pretty much in love with the versatility of the Bundt, that I can see a proper pan in my future; maybe to celebrate National Bundt Day next month!

If you’ve been inspired to get into the kitchen and bake, then why not check out this other cakey combinations, go ahead and give these guys a click…

• Gluten-free rainbow bundt
• Gingerbread latte layer cake
• Cookie Dough layer cake

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