Baking is so much fun, but in a household of 2 there isn’t much opportunity for it without gaining a ton of weight. On Sunday we hosted a steak night at our house inviting 2 other couples. We had a great time and the dinner was fantastic. I saw this as a perfect occasion to bake a cake. I remembered a design from one of my sister Olya’s cakes and wanted to design it similarly. She sliced strawberries, kiwi, and halved bluberries which she then covered the surface of the cake with, she also put them into the cream in between the layers. I first found a bundt cake recipe I liked.

1/4 cup poppy seed

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup butter

1 1/2 cups white sugar

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

First soak the poppy seeds in the buttermilk for 6 to 8 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease 10 in. bundt pan. Cream butter and 1 1/2 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla.

Sift flour, salt, and baking soda together. Add to butter mixture alternating with the poppy seed mixture. Blend well. Put batter into pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean (mine was done after 40 minutes). Cool cake on rack for one hour.

All I had for cream was lite Cool Whip cream so I used that, but a better option, as my sister in law, the great baker and candlestick maker, told me was to use the good ole heavy whipping cream + powdered sugar since this will keep the cream from being runny….no wonder my creams have ALWAYS been runny. Anyway, to stiffen up the cool whip a bit I did add some powdered sugar which I then tried to mask by adding lemon. It worked.

2 small tubs Cool Whip or better yet an equivalent amount of heavy whipping cream

1/4 cup powdered sugar if you use cool whip

1 lemon medium juiced

1 pint blueberries

1 lbs. strawberries

5 kiwi

If this seems like a lot of fruit, it is. This measurement will allow for some mistakes in the thin slicing of the strawberries and kiwi which you can then snack on 🙂 and plenty of fruit for the inside. I thinly sliced about 3 1/2 of the kiwi, and about 3 quarters of the strawberries, the rest I chopped up into cubes. Once the cake was cooled I cut it into 3 layers and putting the top piece back into the pan I slathered a thick layer of cream and then proceeded to load it up with whole blueberries and kiwi & strawberry cubes. I then placed the middle layer back into the pan compressing it against the top layer and cream and did the same. I finished off by placing the last layer of the cake over the cream, covering it with saran wrap, putting a heavy cutting board over it and popping it into the fridge for several hours. A couple hours before serving I iced the cake with my cream and patterned it with my kiwi and strawberry slices. It was delicious!