Tuesday, March 31, 2009

This was supposed to be a carrot cake.


It was. It really was. But something went wrong in the oven and a lemon cake came out.

No, not really.

But it -was- supposed to be carrot cake. I had a craving for carrot cake. And cream cheese frosting. I wanted a dense, moist, sticky spice cake full of shredded carrots, then topped with a slightly sweetened cream cheese frosting. It sounded soooo good. And then I looked at the grocery ads for Newflower. And there was a sale. On bundt cakes. Lemon bundt cakes. And there was a picture. And then I forgot about carrot cake and moved onto lemon.

But I'm not complaining. The cake was mouthgasmic. It was gone in about five days.

I took the lemon cake I used way back when for my Fourth of July Cupcake Hero thing. Except I didn't try dying it blue again. >.<
Lemon Bundt Cake with Lemon Curd Cream Cheese Frosting:

Lemon Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup (one stick) salted butter, softened
3 eggs
1 cup buttermilk (I didn't have any, so I just used sour milk: 1 tablespoon lemon juice and enough milk to make one cup.)
2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Grease and flour a bundt pan. Or two eight- or nine-inch round cake pans. Or square pans. Or triangle pans! I want a triangle pan... I used my 12-cup bundt pan and sprayed it with Pam for Baking. That stuff works magic on bundt pans.

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl and stir to combine.

In the bowl of your mixer, combine the butter and sugar and beat until well-blended on medium speed. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture and buttermilk alternately to sugar mixture, beginning and ending with the flour. Beat in the lemon zest and juice.

Pour batter into prepared pan or pans. You want to get it poured into your pan(s) as quickly as possible because this batter starts reacting -quickly- and you don't want to lose too much air.

Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. I set my timer for thirty minutes, checked on it, and it was -done-. I expected it to take longer.

Allow to cool in the pan for a few minutes before turning onto the serving plate. You can frost it warm. And I meant to do that with mine so that the frosting melted and oozed all over. But I had waited too long, so I just frosted all around.


Lemon Curd.

1/2 cup sugar
2 T cornstarch
3 egg yolks
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/3 cup water

In a small saucepan, combine the sugar and cornstarch. Then mix in the egg yolks, lemon juice, lemon zest, and water. Cook over medium to medium low heat, stirring constantly until bubbly. I usually start with a flat wooden spoon, then finish with a flat whisk. Cook and stir (or whisk) for 1-2 minutes more.

Remove from heat and pour into a separate bowl, cover with plastic wrap, pressing it to the surface, and cool. Refrigerate.


Lemon Curd Cream Cheese Frosting.

1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
2 T butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup plus 2-3 T lemon curd, recipe above (or you can use your own recipe or storebought probably. I just knew that I liked that recipe.)

Beat cream cheese and butter in mixer until smooth and creamy. Then beat in powdered sugar, making sure all lumps are gone. Finally, add in lemon curd and beat until completely mixed.



5 comments:

Intisar said...

This looks great! I've been looking for a moist lemon cake recipe, and the icing sounds great!

Gen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gen said...

I was looking for a lemon cake recipe and this sounded like exactly what I wanted...I just made it last night following all your instructions and it turned out great! I had lots of good feedback from others as well. The frosting was divine, I had to stop myself from eating spoonfuls of it!
*I did have a bit of a problem when I inverted the cake out of the pan because some of it stuck and got left behind...I would recommend cooling it at least 5-10 mins first and making sure to run a knife along all the edges to help release it
Thanks!

Siena said...

Ah. May. ZING.

Stumbled on this recipe randomly after my boyfriend asked for the standard lemon poppy seed cake this year for his birthday. I added a bit more lemon to the batter and 2 tbsp of poppy seeds to the batter but other than that, didn't touch a thing. Gosh this cake was good... I've been thinking about the single slice left all morning. I suppose I have to leave that for the birthday boy though, huh?

This is my new go-to lemon cake recipe. Though now you have me thinking of carrot cake, too...

Thanks so much for sharing!

Unknown said...

Love this recipe!!! It was fun just reading the directions, my daughter and I had a blast with this, THANK YOU!!