Strawberry Rhubarb Bundt Cake

I can never resist making a bundt cake! Especially when I have strawberries and rhubarb on hand and a bottle of buttermilk in the fridge. This strawberry rhubarb bundt cake takes that beautiful spring fruit and turns it into a delicious, moist, and beautiful cake. Who’s up for dessert?

Hey all!

Things have been super busy here at BitofBacon HQ lately! No sooner did we get back from our spring vacation to visit my parents in Florida than we decided to completely rearrange our house. Including repainting the living room and putting a new rug down in there! Which sounds so easy and quick when I write it like that, but I’ve barely had time to sit down for a minute in the past week. *phew* But it’s done now and the room looks amazing.

Now all I have to do is clean and organize my house from top to bottom since we have company coming for the weekend. And get going on a Mother’s Day brunch. And catch up here on the blog. And photograph some food so I have yummy things to post in the next couple of weeks. That’s all. 🙂 (And we were up until 1 in the morning last night fixing our turtle’s tank filter. The thing did not want to filter anything and that was not acceptable.)

Anyway, I have sat down today to write up this awesome recipe for strawberry rhubarb bundt cake, since I couldn’t miss another posting day AND y’all really need to made this!

As soon as I saw the rhubarb at the farmer’s market (hello Oakdale Farm!)  I knew I needed to make something special with it. Strawberries aren’t quite out yet, but the supermarket berries tend to be fresh and tasty this time of year, since they aren’t coming from so far away, which meant I picked up a package of them as well. A bit of thought and then my mind went to my Blueberry Bundt Cake which I posted last year. That cake uses yogurt, but I had some buttermilk in the fridge, so used that and started mixing.

And, you know what?

My cake totally stuck to the pan!!!

I mean, really. How rude.

I tried using a homemade oil and flour paste and I wanted to use my rose shaped bundt. I’m not sure if it was the deep folds of that bundt or my paste wasn’t doing its job, but I have a not-so-pretty bundt in my freezer right now. 🙂 It wasn’t pretty, but it was still yummy!

For this bundt I used baking pam (it hasn’t failed me yet) and a less foldy bundt pan so I would be doubly sure of pretty cake. I certainly didn’t need to make the cake a third time while trying to clean, paint, and rearrange my house!

Once I had my beautiful cake full of yummy strawberries and rhubarb and an oh-so-moist crumb, I whipped up an orange glaze and poured it over the cake. All that was left was to make some coffee, take some pictures, and eat some cake.

– Happy Baking, Annemarie

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote

Strawberry Rhubarb Bundt Cake

Time to dust off your bundt pan and bake your mom (or dad) a special summer treat! This buttermilk strawberry rhubarb bundt cake is moist, tender, packed full of fresh fruit, and topped with a zingy orange glaze. A surefire crowd pleaser!

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: 12 slices

Author: Just a Little Bit of Bacon

Ingredients

Cake

• 3 cups (15 ounces) all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp orange juice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• ¾ cup buttermilk
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 large egg yolk room temperature
• 16 tbsp (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cool room temperature
• 2 cups (14 ounces) granulated sugar
• 1 cup diced strawberries, 1/2 inch dice
• 1 cup diced rhubarb, 1/2 inch dice

Glaze

• 2 tbsp orange juice
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 2 tbsp buttermilk, plus more if needed
• 3 cup (12 ounces) confectioners' sugar

Instructions

• For the cake: Adjust your oven rack to lower-middle position. Preheat the oven to 350F. Brush the pan with melted butter, making sure to get into any nooks and bends in the design. Dust the pan liberally with flour and then tap out the excess. Or use flour and oil baking spray.
  
• In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking power, baking soda and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk the orange juice with the vanilla extract and buttermilk. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs and yolk to combine.
• Using a standing mixture fitted with the flat beater, cream the butter and sugar together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add the eggs and mix together on medium speed until incorporated, about about 20 seconds, scraping down the bowl as needed.
• Now it's time to mix in the flour and the buttermilk. Turn the mixer on low; add ⅓ of the flour mixture and mix until just incorporated. Then add ½ of the buttermilk mixture, again mixing until just incorporated. Continue adding in turns - ⅓ of the flour, the remain ½ of the buttermilk, and the last ⅓ of the flour. When the last of the flour is almost mixed in, remove the bowl from the mixer. Then add half of the strawberries and rhubarb.  Use your spatula to give the batter a few swift stirs to finish mixing and incorporate the fruit. (If you don't have a standing mixer, you can use a hand mixer. Just increase the mixing time for the butter and sugar to 6-7 minutes.)
• Dollop the batter into the prepared pan, adding spoonfuls evenly around the circle of the Bundt pan. Pour remaining strawberries and rhubarb over the top and push gently into the top of the batter.
  
• Bake until the cake is golden brown and a wooden skewer or toothpick inserted into center comes out with no crumbs attached, 55-65 minutes.
• Put the bundt pan on a wire rack and let the cake cool in the pan for 30 minutes. Then gently loosen the cake from the edges of the bundt pan with a butter knife or spatula and invert cake directly onto the rack. If the cake doesn't want to get out of the pan, try loosening it again and tapping the pan. With a complicated Bundt design, this may take a few tries. Let the cake cool completely before glazing.
• For the glaze: Whisk together the orange juice, orange zest, buttermilk, and confectioners' sugar until smooth and very thick. The glaze should be just liquid enough to flow thickly off the whisk. If it doesn't flow, add more buttermilk by the ½ tablespoon until it does. Spoon the glaze evenly over the top of the cooled cake until it looks like there is enough on it. Don't worry if it doesn't look smooth and pretty at first; the glaze will slowly work its way down the cake. Cut into slices and serve.

Notes

• For best results let the eggs and buttermilk come to room temperature before you make the batter. With cold ingredients the center takes a long time to cook through. To quickly warm the eggs put them in some warm water for a few minutes.
• DO NOT use more than 2 cups of fruit.
• In place of the buttermilk you can substitute ½ cup of Greek yogurt (whole milk, or low fat with no stabilizers) plus ¼ cup milk, or ¾ cup plain yogurt.
• Cool room temperature for butter is 60F. The butter should be cool, but pliable, and not soft. To quickly bring butter to temperature, cut it into ¼ inch pieces and let it sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes.

As an extra treat, I have a picture of my fluffy, furry Apollo! He loves brushies and trying to steal a bite of whatever I’m making. 🙂 One of his favorite things in the world is cantaloupe. Yeah, he’s weird, but he’s mine and I love him.