Party Rings Bundt Cake

Much excitement surrounded the upcoming 'sausage dog party'. There were lots of questions from friends at work, a purchase of sausage dog socks, and even baking of bone shaped dog biscuits. Lady Darbyshire was about to turn one, and believe me, this was never going to go unmarked. 

Let me tell you about Lady. She's a miniature dachshund who lives with my good friends Dan and Emma. Loved wherever she pootles, Lady is quite the hound. She has her own Instagram account, collects fans from far and wide, features on the logo of her mum's business, and once weed on my foot. She is part of a merry sausage tribe, one of whom is her brother Fritz, who lives next door but one. All her pals came to the party too, my favourite being a sparky little fellow with wiry fur by the name of Charlie. 

How can this possibly get out of hand? Our famous last words (to quote Alan), were 'It must not, repeat not, turn into an all-night rave'. Seven sausages in total, a killer playlist, a crayon outfit, enough gin to preserve about 20 people for 200 years, the best flapjack known to man, and a buffet fit for kings, queens and four legged friends - it was carnage. We left about 1am, one of our number was at a woeful 18 on the chest tightness chart (possibly made up), another was sick in wheelie bin, and the shower needed a damn good scrub the day after. 

Anyway, there ain't no party without Party Rings, so it somehow seemed right to do something overly pink and girly for our Lady. I give you, the Party Ring Bundt.

Cake: 

• 225g butter
• 450g golden caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 350g Homepride plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 250ml vanilla yoghurt 
• 1 packet of Party Rings - blitzed to dust in a food processor
• Pink food colouring gel

Topping:

• 500g icing sugar
• More Party Rings

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to gas 3/160 c
2. Prepare a regular sized bundt tin - 2.4l, 10 cup, 10 inch with melted butter and dust with flour.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. 
5. Add the vanilla extract.
6. In a separate bowl, measure out the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
7. Pour the yoghurt into a jug.
8. Sift in a third of the flour mix followed by half the yoghurt. Repeat this until everything is combined. 
9. Add the blitzed up Party Rings, stirring until just combined. 
10. Give everything a quick mix on a low speed for about 10 seconds.
11. Remove about 1/4 of the batter, and dye pale pink.
12. Pour 1/3 of the standard mix into your prepared tin. 
13. Top with half of the pink mix. 
14. Repeat this, ending with another layer of normal batter. This will give you two pink stripes.
15. Bake in the centre of the oven for about 1 hour 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. 
16. Leave the cake to cool for ten minutes before removing from the tin.
17. When completely cool, mix the icing sugar with enough water to make a thick but still runny icing, and again, dye pink.
18. Tip it over your cake.
19. Decorate with more Party Rings, as I'm sure there isn't quite enough sugar going on already...

Bloggers: Please respect the fact I am sharing my own ideas and basic recipe. Blood, sweat and many tears have gone into getting this right, so you may enjoy a perfect bundt. If you wish to re-blog a recipe from these variations, please credit my blog and link to this original post rather than pasting the recipe on your own page.