Grown up – Strawberry hazelnut bundt cake

I baked a cake … actually I am baking a lot of cakes recently, somehow it became a habit to bake cakes for my colleagues and students on a regular basis. This is especially satisfying when you’re actually meant to correct class tests…

This cake I made twice in one week – which indicates already that something is totally right with it.

First of all it is strawberries … of course – I just can’t walk past if I see them on the market or in the supermarket. I guess a lot of you have similar routines these days.

Still you could call this a simple pound cake – expanded for a bundt cake tin. And somehow it is: It’s one of these allround everyday cakes that you can eat for afternoon tea or coffee, bring along to a picnic – you could even call it a breakfast.

But then it is not quite that simple…

It’s all about the (not so) secret ingredients: toasted hazelnuts, dark chocolate and espresso. They give the cake its complexity of flavour, they make it – if you want to say so – a grown-up cake.

Thanks to the strawberries (half a kilo of strawberries), however, this cake still remains what it should be: a fruity summer cake, that pleases teenagers as well as adults – tested!

Strawberry hazelnut bundt cake

ingredients
500 g strawberries, 300 g flour, 50 g toasted hazelnuts, 50 g dark chocolate, 200 g sugar, 150 g butter (room temperature), 2 teaspoons baking powder, 3 eggs, 1 espresso, 100 g yoghurt, (icing sugar)

preparation

Grease a bundt cake tin. Preheat oven to 180°C. Brew espresso and let cool down at least to room temperature. Wash strawberries and cut into not too smal chunks. Roughly chop hazelnuts and chocolate. In a big bowl mix flour, baking powder, hazelnuts, chocolate. In another bowl whisk together eggs and sugar, add butter, yoghurt and espresso. Combine well. Now mix wet and dry ingredients. Fill batter into prepared tin. Spread even. Place strawberries on top and carefully press a little bit into the batter. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack and dust – if you like – with icing sugar before serving.