Potato Bundt cake/Bramborová bábovka

I was intrigued by this recipe in a recent issue of our favorite Czech cooking magazine, Apetit, which is for a Babovka, Bundt cake, made with potatoes. I set out to follow the recipe, but as usual, I changed a little here, a little there (I omitted a packet of pudding mix, for example) and now I’m not sure how much it resembles the original. The potato gives it a wonderfully moist texture, it’s more delicate than I expected, and not too sweet. Perfect with afternoon tea, perhaps. We don’t have a potato ricer and while I used a hand mixer to beat the potato mixture there were still quite a few small lumps in the batter. No matter – they aren’t apparent at all in the finished cake.

Print recipe

Bramborová bábovka/Potato Bundt Cake (adapted from Apetit Magazine)

Because Valerian gets an upset stomach from too much baking powder, I used half baking powder and half baking soda for this recipe, and so I needed to use something sour like buttermilk or kefir for the 3 Tbs liquid. The original recipe calls for 2 tsp baking powder and using milk.

Ingredients

• 250g/2 2/3 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 250g/8.5 oz cooked potatoes, mashed well or put through a ricer
• 150g/3/4 cup sugar
• 100g/4 oz butter, softened
• 3 eggs
• 3 Tbs buttermilk or kefir
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• zest of one lemon
• 100g/4 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/180 C. Grease and flour an 8-cup Bundt pan.
• In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder and baking soda, and salt. In a medium bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, potatoes, kefir or buttermilk, eggs, lemon zest and vanilla extract. Gently stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Fold in the chopped chocolate.
• Scrape into the Bundt pan and bake for 45-55 minutes or until top is golden.