Walnut Cinnamon Bundt Cake

A moist bundt cake with a walnut and cinnamon center; no frosting needed here, just a hot coffee and friends to share it with!

Ingredients

For the Cake:

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups plain Greek yogurt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt

For the Center and the Topping:

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Instructions

For the Center and the Topping:

• Add the sugar, cinnamon, and walnuts to a small mixing bowl and stir to mix together.  Set aside.

For the Cake:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Liberally coat the inside of a bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray.  Set aside.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until creamy.
• Scrape down the bowl and add the eggs one at a time, beating the mixture well after each addition.
• Remove the bowl from the stand mixer.  Add the vanilla extract and yogurt.  Stir into the butter mixture with a spatula until well incorporated.
• Place the bowl back into the mixer base and add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  With the mixer on low speed, beat the flour into the butter and yogurt mixture.  Do not over mix – just until the flour is incorporated.
• This batter is really thick!  To make adding the batter to the bundt pan a little easier, I used a spring ice cream scoop.  You can use a tablespoon as well.  Add half of the batter in large dollops to the bundt pan.  
• Top the batter with half the amount of the walnut and cinnamon mixture.
• Add the rest of the batter to the bundt pan – again, adding large dollops.  You’ll want to avoid dumping the batter in and trying to smooth out the surface, because of the batter being so thick, it will disturb the clean center we are trying to achieve.
• Next, add the rest of the cinnamon and walnut mixture to the top of the batter.
• At this point, I like to tap the pan very aggressively onto a cutting board.  This will help the thick batter to settle well into the bundt pan and help to level out the batter as well.
• Bake for 55 minutes.  Check to see if the cake is done by inserting a wooden toothpick into the center of the cake.  If the toothpick comes out clean, the cake is done.  If there’s wet cake batter on the toothpick, leave the cake in the oven for another 5 minutes and perform the toothpick test again.
• Once the cake is done, remove from oven and place the pan onto a wire cooling rack and leave it there for 15 minutes.  Once the 15 minutes has passed, turn the cake out onto the wire cooling rack to finish cooling.

Recipes by http://www.lordbyronskitchen.com