Brown Butter Vanilla Bean Bundt Cake

Brown Butter Vanilla Bean Bundt Cake is a lightly sweet cake with a velvety moist crumb that explodes with vanilla flavor in your mouth. It’s easy and basic, which makes it a perfect go to cake for almost anything from strawberry shortcake to birthday cake.

I was in the mood to bake a cake the other night. I didn’t really have time for a full blown layer cake with all kinds of gooey yumminess… I wasn’t even in the mood for that. I wanted something simple and easy, and something I could use about a half cup of leftover ganache on. I paged through my cookbooks and I came upon the Brown Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake in Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Reading through the ingredients I knew this was the one.

Moist, with a dense crumb flecked with vanilla beans the texture is similar to a pound cake. This cake is seriously good, not cloyingly sweet like a yellow cake but delicately sweet in a way that encourages you to take another bite. And another. And… well, you know. Another.

This is the first time that I made a cake by weighing the ingredients rather than measuring. I think it made a difference in the end result. I’ve been wanted to weigh ingredients for awhile it just seemed like it would be time consuming. I don’t really like to change how I do things, you know? I was surprised to find that it was actually easier and I was more confident because I knew that there was the exact same amount of flour and called for in the recipe. I have a small kitchen scale and it was super easy.

I didn’t make a lot of changes to this vanilla bean bundt cake, to be perfectly honest. There is a point where you have to realize that screwing with perfection is just dumb. I had one of those moments while making this. Think of this recipe as the Little Black Dress of the cake world.
I added the ganache but I can tell you this would be great with fresh fruit compote, ice cream, custard sauce… whatever.

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Give this a try, I am pretty sure it’s going to be a family favorite. Oh, and the cake plate? You can find it at Victorian Trading Company – isn’t it amazing?

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5 from 1 vote

Brown Butter Vanilla Bean Bundt Cake

Prep Time15 mins

Cook Time55 mins

Total Time1 hr 10 mins

Course: Dessert

Servings: 12

Author: Marye Audet

Ingredients

• 4 ounces unsalted butter, (8 tablespoons)
• 238 grams all-purpose flour, (1 3/4 cups)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups (250 grams) sugar
• 2 vanilla beans
• 4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 eggs, , room temperature
• 1/3 cup heavy cream, (80 ml)

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350F.
• Butter and flour a bundt pan.
• In a heavy saucepan melt the butter until it turns the color of honey. Be careful not to let it burn.
• Cool.
• Add the sugar to a large bowl.
• Split the vanilla beans in half and scrape the seeds in to the sugar.
• Smush the vanilla beans into the sugar until the sugar is moist and smells like vanilla.
• Whisk the flour, salt, and baking powder together in another bowl.
• With an electric mixer beat the eggs into the sugar until light - about a minute.
• Beat in the vanilla extract then the cream.
• Stir in the dry ingredients until the batter is smooth.
• Fold in the butter in 2 different batches.
• Spoon the batter into the pan.
• Bake for 55 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
• Cool in the pan for five minutes and then turn out to cool all the way.
• Top with ganache or your favorite toppings.

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