The baking of a bundt

It all started a couple of weeks ago. Our good friends locally asked if we had the DVD of 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding'. Since moving to Cyprus, they had been told repeatedly that they should really see it - and more recently, had come across references to it in various books.

We did, and since it must have been about six years since we watched it, we checked with someone who was staying - he had never seen it, and was happy to see it too - and arranged a DVD evening on Monday of last week. We all enjoyed it. The film pokes fun at both Greek and American culture; living in Cyprus, we particularly appreciated the Greek family humour which is caricatured - but not much.

Then we got into discussion of the 'bundt' which was taken to a party by the nervous American mother. I produced my ring pan - and said I'd find a recipe and make one for the next cell group meeting. I did some research, and came across several recipes that sounded rather good. A bundt pan technically has sloping sides, so I was actually going to make a ring cake... but we didn't worry too much about that.

So, on Friday a week ago, since I had three apples that needed to be used up, I made a Dutch apple bundt cake. It was quite easy, and smelled good.

I didn't think there would be any problem getting it out of the pan - it's a loose-bottomed one, coated with teflon; I greased with butter and floured as the recipe told me to. And, indeed, the side came away easily. But the middle part didn't...


Since it was quite big, I was worried that trying to force it out would make it break.

However, when Richard got home from work, he was braver. He loosened it, and then flipped it upside down onto a serving dish, and shook it out:


Some of the fluted parts were a bit dented, but it looked fine.


Meanwhile, our friends called to let us know that their children were all in various stages of an unpleasant (albeit short-lived) stomach bug. Since the friends staying with us did NOT want to be exposed to it, the cell group was cancelled. And, tempting though it was to eat the ring cake, our friends (the ones staying) decided to take us out to our favourite local meze taverna to eat.

So I decided to keep the cake for whenever we next ate with our other friends. Which meant that actually I needed it on a plastic container, so that I could freeze it. So we transferred it to the lid of my Christmas cake container:


.. and wrapped it in foil, and froze it.

Fast forward a week. All were recovered from the stomach bug, and although our friends from the UK had both returned home, we were meeting again at our local friends' home for a cell group in the evening. So I got the cake out in the morning to thaw. I didn't think about the fact that it was actually upside-down - and it hardly mattered, since in fact it looked slightly better that way around.

Anyone who's seen the aforementioned movie will no doubt appreciate this photo:


Then Richard cut it into twelve pieces (even though it should theoretically have served 14). They were fairly good-sized pieces:


We all enjoyed it, including eight-month-old Elisabeth: