Lemon, Yogurt and Pistachio Bundt Cake

I work a lot less in the summer, and some folks don’t work in the summer. That made it hard for me to figure out when to bake the monthly birthday cakes! Plus, no one had a birthday in August, so I am out of practice. In the library there are two September birthdays, so I needed to get my act together and make a cake. I decided to make this Bundt cake with lemon and pistachios, because Bundt cakes are always winners.

I’ve made quite a few Bundt/pound cakes, but this is the first one that I have made with oil rather than butter. That gave the cake a nice, light texture. I thought about adding some chopped pistachios to the batter, but I just kept them for the top of the cake. The cake baked beautifully, came out of the pan cleanly, and just looked great. This didn’t have a lot of glaze which keeps it light, but I could have used some more glaze! The salted pistachios on the top gave a nice crunch and this cake was enjoyed by everyone at work!

Lemon, Yogurt and Pistachio Bundt Cake

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

5 eggs

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup plain Greek-style yogurt

1 cup powdered sugar

3 tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 cup pistachios, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a large Bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray and dust with flour.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda and powder; set aside. In a large mixer bowl, beat the oil, sugar, and brown sugar on medium until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing for one minute after each addition.  Stir in the lemon zest and juice, vanilla and yogurt.

With the mixer running on low, add the flour mixture 1/3 increments. Stir just until combined, the batter may still be slightly lumpy. Pour into the prepared pan.

Bake for 60 minutes, until a thin knife inserted deep in the cake comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes and then remove from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack.

Once the cake is cool, make the glaze: in a medium bowl, combine the powdered sugar and lemon juice. Whisk until smooth. Add additional lemon juice (or milk) if the glaze is too thick. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cake. Sprinkle with the chopped pistachios. Allow the glaze to set before serving.

Recipe from Wandering Spice

Bourbon Cake

This cake was a Kentucky bourbon cake, but I didn’t use Kentucky bourbon, so I’m just going to call it a bourbon cake. I mentioned recently that we went and had lunch in Woodinville, WA, which has tasting rooms for many of the wineries in the state. In addition to wineries, local distilleries have set up in the area. We visited Woodinville Whiskey Company and picked up some of their bourbon whiskey. It’s great stuff! 

My friend at work really likes bourbon and her birthday was coming up so I went looking for a bourbon cake. One thing I have noticed is that many cakes and cookies with alcohol contain so little that you can’t taste it. That’s ok, but this was one cake that I really wanted to taste the bourbon. I found a cake, and my husband found this one and I decided this would be great. I checked to make sure that my friend liked dates; you could always omit them if you wanted. And since this cake contains nearly a cup of bourbon, I figured you would be able to taste it!

This cake came together well, the batter was very light and fluffy. I baked mine the longer side of the baking time. Since I knew I was going to soak the cake in liquid, I wanted it to be cooked all the way through! The original recipe had you soak the cake in the cake, which I did. It made it very hard to remove the cake from the pan, so if you’d prefer to remove the cake from the pan first, that would certainly work. I added a simple glaze make with powdered sugar and some of the remaining soaking syrup (mainly to cover the fact that my cake didn’t come out the pan 100% cleanly.) Boy, this was a fantastic cake! Everyone loved it. I warned everyone that the cake contained quite a bit of uncooked alcohol, but no one seemed to mind.

Bourbon Cake

3 cups cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

4 eggs, room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup buttermilk, room temperature

1/3 cup bourbon

1/2 cup dates, chopped

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup bourbon

1 cup powdered sugar

2-3 tablespoons reserved bourbon soaking syrup

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter or spray with nonstick cooking spray a large Bundt pan.

In a medium bowl, combine the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter, sugar, and brown sugar on medium until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for one minute after adding each egg. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Stir in the vanilla.

In a measuring cup, combine the buttermilk and bourbon.  With the mixer running on low, add 1/3 of the flour and then half of the bourbon mixture. Add another 1/3 of the flour mixture and the remaining bourbon mixture. Finally, add the remaining flour mixture. Stir just until the flour is incorporated. Fold in the dates with a spatula. Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan.

Bake for 50-55 minutes until golden brown and a thin knife inserted in the center of the cake come out clean.  Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.  While the cake is cooling, make the bourbon soaking syrup.

In a small sauce pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in the sugar and vanilla and stir. Remove the pan from the heat momentarily and add the bourbon. Return the pan to the heat and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. 

With the cake still in the pan, use a long, thin knife to poke holes in the cake. Pour ¾ of the soaking syrup over the cake, allowing the syrup to soak in. Allow the cake to cool completely. Reserve the remaining glaze. (Alternatively, you could remove the cake from the pan, poke holes in the cake and then pour the soaking syrup over the cake. The cake won’t soak up as much of the syrup, but it will still be good.)

Remove the cake from the pan. Combine the powdered sugar with 2-3 tablespoons of the bourbon soaking syrup and whisk to combine. Drizzle the glaze over the cake. Allow the glaze to set before serving. 

Recipe from Bake it with Booze

Vanilla Pound Cake

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Vanilla Pound Cake. I was thrilled then this recipe was selected as pound cakes were one of the first cakes that I ever made, and I’ve had good luck with them from the very beginning. I almost didn’t make this cake as it’s been so warm and my house is so hot that I haven’t really felt like baking. When it is 81 degrees in the house at 9 am, I don’t really want to turn on the oven! I got home about noon on Monday and looked at the recipe. I really wanted to make this and I had all the ingredients, so I decided I would bake it. The house didn’t seem quite so hot at the time, which helped.

This cake is very classic and you can find the recipe with a quick Google search. It doesn’t use any unusual ingredients; just staples like butter, flour, sugar, and vanilla. I had some vanilla-infused sugar that I had planned to use, but I forgot to grab that rather than the regular sugar. I did use the tube pan as the recipe recommended; I don’t use it very often so it was nice to use something different. Mine baked up very nicely and came out of the pan beautifully.

I really like this cake. The crumb texture is very delicate, so the cake is nice and light. Even though the cake doesn’t have a lot of fancy ingredients, it’s still wonderful. A piece of the cake by itself was delicious, but I also will use the cake as the base for strawberry shortcake. This cake lends itself to variations, so make sure you check out the Tuesdays with Dorie site to see what the other TWD bakers did with this recipe.

Recipe from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan, pages 251-252

Honey Lemon Bundt Cake

We certainly have a lot of celebrations at work! While I don’t bake cakes for every birthday not (just once a month), it seems like there are still plenty of occasions for me to bake. I don’t usually have time to make layer cakes, so I look for Bundt cakes. They are easy to make, look nice and travel well. I really need to get another Bundt pan that’s a different shape! 

I like lemon cakes, and I thought that the addition of honey would be nice. I didn’t want a super sweet cake, and this cake fit the bill. The cake is baked and then doused with lemon simple syrup and topped with lemon glaze. If you wanted to cut the sweetness even more, you could omit the lemon glaze and top the cake with a sprinkling of powdered sugar.

The cake mixes together in one bowl, which I appreciate. Of course you then have to make the lemon syrup and the glaze, so this does end up making quite a few dishes to wash. I always use my big 12 cup Bundt pan for these cake recipes, but this one is smaller so if you have a smaller Bundt (9 inch or 10 cup) it will work for this recipe. This cake is lovely. It’s not a decadent, over-the-top cake, but it’s still wonderful. It’s light, refreshing, and not too sweet.

Honey Lemon Bundt Cake

2 eggs

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1-1/2 cups sugar

10 ounces honey Greek yogurt

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Zest from 2 large lemons

2 1/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons self-rising flour*

2 tablespoons lemon Juice

2 tablespoons honey

3 tablespoons powdered sugar

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

¼ teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a large Bundt pan.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil and sugar. Add the yogurt, lemon juice and lemon zest, and whisk again. Sift the flour over the mixture and fold gently to incorporate. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake in preheated oven for 40-45 minutes, until a thin knife inserted into the cake comes out clean.  Cool for 10 minutes in the pan. While the cake is cooling in the pan, make the lemon simple syrup.

Make the lemon simple syrup: In a small saucepan, heat the lemon juice, honey and powdered sugar over low heat, just until the sugar melts. Remove from the heat.

Remove the cake from the pan and invert on a wire rack. Poke holes evenly in the cake with a skewer or thin knife. Pour the lemon syrup over the cake. Allow to cool completely.

Make the glaze: in a small bowl combine the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla; stir until smooth. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cake. Allow the glaze to set before serving.

Recipe from Sweetly Serendipity

*I make my own self-rising flour by combining 4 cups of flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon of baking soda and 1 teaspoon salt

Hazelnut, Cinnamon, and Coconut Bundt Cake

We had several birthdays at work last month, and it happened that I couldn’t bring a cake on a day that all of the birthday celebrants were there. My solution was to make two cakes, one earlier in the month and one later in the month, so that everyone would have a chance to celebrate. I ended up bringing this cake on a Friday, which also meant that there were cookies. I decided to make a less decadent cake, so I went with this hazelnut, cinnamon and coconut Bundt cake. 

I had some coconut-infused sugar left from the Triple Layer Coconut Cake that my husband had made, and since this cake had coconut, I decided to use up the remaining sugar. My cake had 1 cup regular sugar and one cup coconut-infused sugar. I think that added a little more to the cake, and gave the cake an extra coconut boost. 

This cake is made using a very usual method, where you whip up the eggs and sugar first, mix the dry and the wet ingredients in a separate bowl, and then add the egg mixture. I don’t think I’ve ever used that method before, but the batter looked fine going in the oven. It baked up beautifully and came out of the pan perfectly, so I guess that method works too! The cake did have a nice coconut flavor, which was great paired with the crunch of the hazelnuts. I love Bundt cakes and this one was no exception.

Hazelnut, Cinnamon, and Coconut Bundt Cake

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups flour
6 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4cup vegetable oil
14 ounces plain yogurt
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
¾ cup hazelnuts, lightly toasted, cooled and finely chopped

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease or spray with nonstick cooking spray a 12-cup Bundt pan.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together until thick and pale. In a separate large bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in the oil, yogurt, coconut and hazelnuts and stir with a spatula until combined. Add the egg mixture and fold to combine.

Pour into prepared pan and bake for 60-80 minutes, until a thin knife inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove the cake from the pan. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Dust the top of the cake with powdered sugar to serve.

Recipe from Technicolor Kitchen