by Jeannette Ordas of Everybody likes Sandwiches

I went a bit cake crazy this past weekend, but it's okay because it was my birthday. Birthdays warrant cake. Part of my birthday would involve bike riding around the city looking for perfect picnic spots in local parks and beaches, so I wanted a cake that could travel well in a bike pannier. Sadly, that meant a cake without frosting (don't worry because I had another cake at home for after the ride with plenty of layers & lots of frosting). So I decided to go bundt and went with a pretty marbleized cake.

Going bundt was perfect because the shape is kinda fun and it's easy to slice and pass around to eager picnic-ers. Plus, bundt cakes tend to have a denser crumb so it's not as delicate and can handle a few hours of tumbling about in a bag attached to bike. I had taken out the book All Cakes Considered from the library and was eager to make a cake called the "Naughty Senator" involving rum, peppermint and green food colouring. I'm a big fan of the chocolate-mint combo, so I figured it was perfect!

Now, the cake you see in the photos obviously isn't the Naughty Senator. Unfortunately, when it came to making the green batter I realized that not only was I out of green food colouring, but also my bottle of peppermint extract was empty. Doh! (That will teach me to be more organized before I begin a recipe.) So I improvised and added lemon extract instead along with some lemon zest and a few drops of yellow colour for a more golden hue. And because I wanted to give this cake a wacky name, I decided on The Golden Girl. If you aren't into lemon and want to go the peppermint route, I've made adjustments in the recipe below.

Recipe note: I did manage to over-bake the cake (it still was mighty tasty). The original recipe states a one hour bake time, but it was just too much for my oven. So I've adjusted the recipe to check on things 45 minutes in. Let your cake-tester (or toothpick) be your guide.

Golden Girl Bundt Cake
(Adapted from All Cakes Considered)
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 large eggs
3 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
2 tsp. lemon extract (or peppermint extract)
zest of 1 lemon (exclude if making the mint version)
a few drops of yellow (or green) food colouring (optional)
2 tsp. amber rum

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a bundt pan, shaking out any excess flour.

2. In a small bowl, combine a 1/2 cup of the sugar and all of the cocoa. Set aside.

3. Cream butter until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add in the remaining sugar and add in the eggs, one at a time.

4. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt together and add in 1 cup of the flour mixture into the butter mixture. Then add in 1/3 cup of the milk and beat until mixed. Repeat until the milk and the flour have been added. Pour half of the batter into a clean bowl.

5. Add in the lemon extract, zest and yellow food colouring (just enough to make the batter a nice rich yellow colour) into the new bowl of batter. Mix well with a wooden spoon to combine and then pour 2/3 of this batter into the prepared bundt pan. Set aside.

6. In the other bowl (the one not flavoured with lemon), add in the cocoa-sugar mixture and add the rum. Beat until smooth.

7. Pour the chocolate batter into the bundt pan and layer the remaining lemon batter on top. Marble the layers by using a butter knife to slice through the middle of the pan all the way to the bottom. Bring knife towards you and then up out of the pan. Repeat so that you end up going all around the cake, making sure you don't over marble. Do two rotations, no more.

8. Bake for 45-50 minutes. When an inserted toothpick comes out clean, cool for 15 minutes in the pan and then remove cake pan and let cool on a wire rack.