when life brings you lemons, make lemonade—and mini Bundt cakes

February 7th, 2010 by admin Leave a reply »

mini bumdt at 350I didn’t know who Nigella Lawson was until my best friend Dawn gave me Nigella’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess for a wedding gift nearly eight years ago. Nigella’s lemon Baby Bundts recipe, super simple to make with impressively pretty results, has been an ideal match for any of my three mini Bundt cake pans. (I’ve already admitting to collecting Nordic Ware, so is it a surprise I have the multi, the fluted, and the flowers mini Bundt pans?)

Tonight, I used the book’s photo of white icing dripping off the sides of a mini Bundt cake to sell Carter on having the three Meyer lemons he brought home from Lucy’s tree at daycare to do double duty: make lemonade as intended and make dessert for a Super Bowl gathering tomorrow. Bonus: both offer easy ways to engage kids in the kitchen.

Carter loves to hand-squeeze lemons, using funny enough another wedding present, a lemon squeezer from friends Anita and Cameron. Tonight, I let him cut the lemons in half with a serrated knife for the first time. (Just when you thought I’d forgotten about the child-development skills part of my blog, I’ll point out that hand-squeezing and cutting take strength and coordination, while directing where juice or a knife ends up involves hand-eye coordination and spatial awareness.)

For the cakes, however, I didn’t let Carter handle the zester, yet, even though he asked. I’m still nervous about zesting the skin off my own fingers, so I think we’ll hold off on that. We did talk about what zest is and sniff it, though, for a bit of sensory awareness.

Lots of zest (I use more than the original recipe) and the frosting are key to the cakes being flavorful. This is the first time I’ve doubled the original cake recipe, so feel free to half it. You can also use vanilla yogurt instead of plain. And, according to Nigella, the recipe will also work with just about any citrus, such as orange or lime, so make it you own and let me know how it goes.

One-Lemon Lemonade

Squeeze 1 lemon. A large lemon yielded 1/3 cup lemon juice. Heat the same yield amount of water (1/3 cup) and of sugar (1/3 cup water) in the microwave on high for 2 minutes to make simple sugar. Mix juice, simple syrup, and an equal amount (1 cup) of water to dilute. Chill and enjoy.

Lemon Baby Bundts

cakes
1 cup plain yogurt (or 2/3 cup Greek yogurt + 1/3 cup water)
1 1/2 cups butter, melted and slightly cooled
4 eggs
zest of  3 lemons (preferably Meyer)
2 cups flour
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon, scant, salt (2 pinches)

icing
2 cups powdered sugar
juice of 2 lemons

Butter two mini Bundt pans (each with six molds). Preheat over to 325˚F.

Whisk together the yogurt, butter, eggs, and lemon zest in a small mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and fold with a rubber spatula until well combined.

Divide the batter evenly among the 12 molds. Bake for 25–30 minutes, or until the tops are starting to lightly brown and a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool cakes 10 minutes in pans before turning out on a wire rack. Cool completely before icing.

To make the icing, sift the powdered sugar into a bowl and add enough of the lemon juice to make icing about the consistency of honey. Pour icing on top of the cakes and allow to drizzle down the sides.

Adapted from Nigella Lawson’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess

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