Green Tea and Pistachio Bundt

This week.. let's see.. Oh wow! That was some week. 

It started with green tea donuts. Fail. Then double chocolate macarons. Fail. 

And I really did not feel like baking anything else. Because, well see I just can't handle my entire kitchen and cupboards of ingredients conspiring against me! But I remembered I had to bake my last cake with my lovely group The Cake Slice Bakers.. This month is the last month of our book, The Southern Cake Book, and it was a free choice. I remember there being a matcha bake way back when as a choice, and figured since I bombed on one matcha bake this week.. why not make it a two for.

Just feeling incredibly sorry for myself in case you hadn't figured.. Self pity party, table for one.

But then this one worked... and I was very happy with it! Well as happy as one can be after the realisation I forgot to marble it.. ooops! I also didn't have the required ingredients for the glaze that the book called for so made a vanilla sugar glaze and loaded it with yummy pistachios! But it did restore my fate in myself as a baker and as I went to take pictures...

Champ got sick. And I got sick and now I am back to feeling super sorry for myself and have nothing but a few photos on a bake I can no longer taste thanks to my smashing new head cold!

Can we just write this week off and start fresh after the bank holiday on Monday??

Green Tea and Pistachio Bundt 

adapted from The Southern Cake Book's Green Tea- Honeysuckle Cake pg 205

225g soft butter
575g caster sugar
60ml honey
6 large eggs at room temp.
675g self raising flour
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
125ml buttermilk
2tsp green tea (matcha) powder
1 tsp vanilla
250g icing sugar
60ml milk
100g chopped pistachios

Preheat the oven to 160C/325F or Gas Mark 3. Grease a bundt pan with butter and flour until coated. Tip out any excess flour.
Beat the butter until creamy and slowly add the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the honey and mix until just blended.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing a little after each addition.
Sift the flour, baking powder and add to the butter mixture in batches, alternating with the milk.
Fold in the matcha and combine until blended through.
Bake for at least one hour to one hour 15, on the middle shelf, until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Cool the cake completely in the pan on a wire rack. When cool, remove from the tin and poor over the glaze.

Make the glaze:

Add the vanilla, milk and icing sugar to a pot and allow to melt together over a low heat, until just heated. Pour immediately over the cold, turned out cake and sprinkle with the chopped pistachio.

Want to check out what the rest of the bakers choose as their final bake.. Have a peek at the linky below.. BUT also come back next month, for our new book reveal!! It's such a pretty one...

An InLinkz Link-up

Baked Buttermilk Donuts

This post can be nothing other than short and sweet because that's all that these little cuties lived. The minute they started baking, husband was in, circling the oven like a hungry wolf. The kids sniffing the air like they'd never smelt vanilla baking before... 

My pal brought me home a set of Nordic Ware Donut Pans from a recent trip to the States. I was so impressed with the quality, I genuinely couldn't wait to try them out. Seeing as I wanted to get the recipe right first time, I took to Pinterest for, ahem, "research". Three hours of my life later and armed with little more than a few scribbles on a sheet, I emerged with a multi-influenced recipe and no idea if it'd work.

(Cooking Classy, Sally's Baking Addiction and The Domestic Rebel helped me find my way.)

I didn't actually spend three hours looking up donut recipes, I browsed EVERYTHING else. Because let's face it, the rabbit-hole-vortex that is Pinterest traps you from the get go. Coming out alive is a win in itself. 

Buttermilk Baked Donuts with a Vanilla Glaze

525g self raising flour
150g sugar
1 tsp baking powder
2 large eggs
1.5 tsp pf vanilla
55g butter (melted)
55ml vegetable oil
250ml buttermilk

Preheat oven to 180C/350F or Gas Mark 4. Liberally grease two 6-cavity donut pans with cooking spray and set to one side. Or one 12.. whatever you have.

In a large bowl whisk together the flours, sugar and baking powder together until combined.

Whisk the eggs in a medium bowl until frothy, and then stir in the vanilla. Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and begin stirring to combine.

Add the melted butter and the oil and fold through until just incorporated.  Now add the buttermilk and mix through until smooth. The batter is runny so it's easier to...

Scrape the batter into a piping bag and snip open the tip. Pipe the donut batter into the pan holes until they are about 2/3 full. 

Gently tap the donut pans on the counter to dislodge any bubbles.

Bake for approximately 9-11 minutes. Allow the donuts to sit in the pan for about 5 minutes before gently removing. Turn the pan upside down and gently shake it until they pop out. Allow to cool fully before dipping.

Glaze

60ml milk

240g icing sugar

1tsp vanilla extract/paste

To make the glaze: On the hob, put the icing sugar, milk and vanilla in a small pot over medium heat until melted and combined. Dip each donut into the glaze, allowing excess to drip off on a wire rack over a piece of baking parchment. 

Immediately sprinkle with er, sprinkles as the glaze crisps super fast. Reheat the glaze or add more milk as necessary if you need to keep it smooth.

Hopefully you will have more than three donuts to take photos with.. Hungry wolves snap these up fast! These are great but they come with a warning. The fact they are baked, tricks your mind into thinking they are healthy for you because fried donuts are... So. Bad. For. You. And these aren't fried.

All in moderation I say.. just possibly not the all 12 to yourself kind of moderation.

**opinions expressed in the post are my own, I wasn't asked to give them. I just freaking love those donut pans... and while I would have seriously loved it if Nordic Ware sent me their products to use... They haven't... yet!! (one can dream right?)**