Homemade Funfetti Bundt Cake

Five hundred weeks. I noted it privately, at the kitchen table, with a piece of honey cake and a cup of coffee. Five hundred weeks of writing for RecipeSpinoff. Five hundred essays about food and family and the Jewish kitchen and the chain. Five hundred recipes connected to five hundred weeks of a life that has contained Marvin's diagnosis and his decline and his move to Cedarhurst and a book published by Knopf and four grandchildren growing and daily visits and matzo balls and brisket and the specific, magnificent, exhausting labor of living fully while losing slowly.

Five hundred weeks is nine years and seven months. Five hundred weeks is 3,500 days. Five hundred weeks is approximately 1,500 containers of food delivered to Cedarhurst. Five hundred weeks is one book, forty-seven recipes, one husband, two children, four grandchildren, one sister in Tel Aviv, and one kitchen that has held it all — the writing and the cooking and the visiting and the grieving and the celebrating and the braiding and the stirring and the feeding, always the feeding.

I did not post about the milestone. The milestone is mine. The five hundred is mine. The honey cake is mine. I eat it at the kitchen table and I think: five hundred more? The thought is ambitious. The thought is hopeful. The thought is the kind of thought that a woman who has survived fifty years of cooking thinks: there is always more. There is always the next week, the next recipe, the next essay, the next container of brisket at two o'clock. Five hundred and counting. The counting is the living. The living is the chain.

The honey cake was already gone — eaten at the table, as it should be — but the week that followed, I wanted something brighter, something that looked the way five hundred felt from the inside: festive and a little ridiculous and stubbornly hopeful. A Funfetti Bundt is not a solemn cake. It does not mourn. It does not ask how you are holding up. It is sprinkles in the batter and a glaze that drips down the sides and the particular cheerfulness of a cake that has decided, on your behalf, that this is worth celebrating. Five hundred weeks is worth celebrating. I made it for myself, on a Tuesday, and I ate two slices with coffee, and I did not post about it, and it was exactly right.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 50 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes | Servings: 12

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup whole milk, room temperature
1/2 cup rainbow jimmies (sprinkles), plus extra for topping
For the vanilla glaze:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
3–4 tablespoons whole milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Instructions

Prepare the pan and oven. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease a 12-cup Bundt pan very thoroughly with softened butter or nonstick baking spray, then dust lightly with flour, tapping out any excess. Set aside.
Whisk the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt until evenly combined. Set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar. In a large bowl using a stand mixer or hand mixer, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar on medium-high speed until pale, light, and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Add eggs and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract. The batter should look smooth and slightly glossy.
Alternate dry ingredients and milk. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk in two additions (flour, milk, flour, milk, flour). Begin and end with the flour. Mix only until just combined — do not overmix.
Fold in the sprinkles. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the 1/2 cup of rainbow sprinkles. Work quickly so they don’t bleed too much color into the batter.
Bake the cake. Pour the batter evenly into the prepared Bundt pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for 45–50 minutes, until a wooden skewer or toothpick inserted into the thickest part comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly pressed.
Cool and unmold. Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Then invert carefully onto the rack and allow to cool completely, at least 45 minutes, before glazing.
Make the glaze. Whisk together the sifted powdered sugar, 3 tablespoons milk, and vanilla extract until smooth and pourable. If too thick, add the remaining tablespoon of milk a little at a time. The glaze should flow slowly off a spoon.
Glaze and finish. Set the cooled cake on the wire rack over a sheet of parchment or a baking sheet to catch drips. Spoon or pour the glaze over the top, letting it run down the sides naturally. Immediately scatter additional sprinkles over the glaze before it sets. Allow the glaze to firm for 10–15 minutes before slicing.

Nutrition (per serving)

Homemade Funfetti Bundt Cake — Five Hundred Weeks, One Quiet Celebration