Bundt cake – especially with yeast dough – summons the spirit of good old times and it is one of those old fashioned recipes that will always have place on my table. Why I love baking with bundt pans is that they can instantly transform any plain cake into something spectacular.

This time I brought the recipe of a two-tone (yellow-brown) bundt cake, which is soft and moist and gets a generous coating of melted butter and caramelized sugar. It’s made from a yeasted dough, which is filled with creamed butter and rolled up – similar to the plum jam bundt cake and to the apricot-vanilla pudding filled bundt cake. Though this cake might seem difficult to be prepared, but actually the yeast does most of the work, so don’t worry, you will have this cake ready in no time.

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• 600 g (~4 3/4 cups) + 1 tbsp flour
• 30 g (~1 oz) fresh yeast (3 tsp dry yeast)
• 60 g (~1/3 cup) sugar
• 60 g (~1/4 cup) butter, melted
• 1 egg yolk
• 300 ml (~1 1/4 cups) milk
• pinch of salt
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder

For the filling:

• 50 g (~1/3 cup) raisins
• 150 g (~1 cup + 2 tbsp) powdered sugar
• 160 g (~2/3 cup) butter

Soak the raisins in lukewarm water. For the filling cream soft butter and powdered sugar. Set aside.

Thoroughly grease a 25 cm / 9-10″ bundt pan.

In a small bowl combine yeast, a tablespoon of sugar, a tablespoon of flour and lukewarm milk. Set aside until the yeast forms a creamy foam.

In a mixing bowl combine flour, salt and the rest of the sugar. Add an egg yolk, the activated yeast and the melted butter to the dry ingredients, and knead into a smooth and pliable dough. Divide the dough into two equal parts. Take one of them, form a ball and put it in a separate bowl.

Add cocoa powder to the other piece of dough and knead until cocoa is fully incorporated.

On a floured surface first roll out the cocoa dough into a 40×25 cm / 16×10″ rectangle. Set aside.

Next roll out the yellow dough into an oblong of the same size. Spread the creamed butter on top of the dough evenly and scatter the drained raisins over it. Place the brown layer on the filling and roll it up starting from the longer side. Place the roll in the prepared pan, pinch ends together, cover and in a lukewarm place let it rise for 45-50 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 356°F. Put the bundt pan on a baking sheet – butter may leak out – and bake for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Turn out the cake onto a wire rack and let it cool.