bundt

So I've decided to honor one of those odd holidays this month (Rhonda always lists these in her CEO): National Bundt Cake Day. And check out this blogger: not only is she a librarian, but she's baking a bundt a day!

I love my bundt pan, though it's a pain to clean.

Ideally, I'd love to make a pumpkin cake (and check it out! another of the bloggers I read did it!), but that's a HUGE cake and I don't have an outlet for that right now. So I perused the index I made for my Cook's Illustrated magazines, and found they have a recipe for The Best Lemon Bundt Cake. Of course! That's it! And I searched no further.


Serves 12 to 14

Cake
Grated zest plus 3 T juice from 3 lemons
3 c all-purpose flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1 t table salt
1 t vanilla extract
3/4 c buttermilk
3 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk, room temp.
18 T unsalted butter, room temp.
2 c sugar

Glaze
2-3 T lemon juice
1 T buttermilk
2 c powdered sugar (10x)

For the cake:
Preheat the oven to 350º and grease a 12 cup bundt pan. Mince zest to a fine paste and combine with lemon juice and set aside to soften (about 10 minutes). Whisk flour, baking soda, powder and salt in a large bowl. Combine lemon mixture, vanilla and buttermilk in a medium bowl. Whisk eggs and yolk gently in a small bowl.

Cream butter and sugar at medium-high speed in a mixer until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium and add half the eggs, mixing for about 15 seconds. Repeat with remaining eggs, scraping down bowl as needed. Reduce to low speed and add one third of the flour mixture, followed by half the buttermilk mixture, mixing until just incorporated. Repeat using half the flour mixture and the rest of the buttermilk mixture. Scrape bowl and add the rest of the flour mixture, mix at medium-low speed until thoroughly combined, about 15 seconds. Scrape into pan.

Bake until the top is golden brown and a skewer or cake tester comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool cake in pan for 10 minutes, then flip out onto a cooling rack.

For the glaze:
Whisk 2 T lemon juice, buttermilk and 10x until smooth, adding more lemon juice gradually, if needed. It should be thick, but pourable. Pour half of glaze over warm cake, then let cool for one hour. Pour remaining glaze evenly over top of cake and continue to cool to room temperature, about 2 hours.

My notes: it took about 55 minutes for mine to bake, but I don't know the type of metal CI recommends for their pan (mine's cast iron). I also felt like there was a ton of glaze; so much so, I added it three times instead of just the two.

My favorite bundt moment? The scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Book recommendation: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
Recipe recommendation: Lemon Bundt Cake
Restaurant recommendation: Binanti's Taste of Italy