Hello lovely readers. I have a confession to make. A big one. This Luscious Lemon Bundt Cake is definitely not perfect! However it is delicious.
Look at this Bundt beauty. Doesn’t it look lovely, all snowy white? Perfect yes? Now look at the photo below. Oops nope! Well, it stuck – a bit. Just a little bit. Although you would never know from looking at it though, would you? So I’m here today to tell you that us Food Bloggers get things wrong sometimes too. I know exactly what I did wrong with this cake, I’ll explain that to you later.
Imperfect Is Okay
Most importantly, in our sleek, perfect, Instagram age, I do think it’s important to be real and honest. So my cake stuck, but I fixed it. And I am so glad I did as this Luscious Lemon Bundt Cake is absolutely beautiful and tastes amazing. I have had more serious disasters than this before and I tend to post them on Twitter as ‘Epic Fails’. Like the adaptation on my Sticky Pecan Sultana Buns!
Wanting to use up some of the many apples that we have had from our two trees this year, I decided to incorporate some freshly grated apple into the bun recipe. Firstly, even with the addition of lemon juice, the apples turned a murky brown colour – not great for blog photos. Still I carried on. The buns were very far from sticky. Soggy more like! They were an ‘Epic Fail’!
Icing That Covers Any Imperfections
Not all failures are un-mendable though. Only a small part of the bottom (top when turned out) of this cake stuck. This was because I had put the hidden lemon curd layer too near the bottom and it sank through the batter and adhered to the tin.
I have addressed this in the method, so although the photos show exactly how this cake was made, the method corrects the mistakes I made. This also includes over-fillng the Bundt tin! I should have used a bigger tin or left some of the cake batter out, instead of using it all. Bundt tins should never be filled more than three quarters full.
So I hid the stuck bit of cake the best way I could – with icing!!
Thick, luscious, lemon icing, draped over a moist lemon cake with a hidden lemon layer inside. If you like lemon flavours, you will go Bonkers over this Bundt!!
With the new method this cake bakes perfectly, however, whenever you are baking, sometimes things don’t always go to plan. So if there are any hitches that can be covered or concealed, go ahead. Sometimes though, if it’s cooked through but wont hold together, make a big jug of custard and have it for pudding!
Recipe : Makes one 10″ Luscious Lemon Bundt Cake
225g/8oz Caster Sugar
225g/8oz Unsalted Butter (plus 4tbsp extra for greasing the bundt pan)
4 Large Free Range Eggs
225g/8oz Plain White Flour
2tsp Baking Powder
1/4tsp Salt
5tbsp Lemon Curd – I use Waitrose own brand
1 Whole Lemon – scrubbed with a brush under running hot water
225g/8oz Icing Sugar
Method : Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan oven, 350F, gas mark 4
You can use an 8″ Bundt tin (as I did) just don’t use all of the batter – or use a 10″ Bundt tin. (Alternatively called a 6 cup and 10 cup bundt pan from Nordicware).
Making The Lemon Cake Batter And Filling The Bundt Pan
- First of all melt 4tbsp of butter and thoroughly grease the Bundt tin, using a brush. Alternatively use Wilton cake release/bake easy, taking care to brush the inside of the bundt tin thoroughly so that it is completely covered.
- Place the caster sugar and butter into a large bowl and beat until light and fluffy.
- Sift all of the flour, baking powder and salt into the bowl.
- Add the 4 eggs.
- Whisk the ingredients together until you have a smooth batter. This is known as the ‘All-in-one method’.
- Zest the lemon, either using a fine grater or lemon zester (which is what I used), the latter gives delicious long strands of zest, visible in the cake. Squeeze one half of the lemon.
- As you can see my tin is not half full so just pretend it is.
- Use a teaspoon to add the lemon curd into the centre of the cake batter.
- As you can see my tin is almost full. This resulted in me having to slice off about 1″ of cake, once it was cooked, to be able to remove the cake from the tin. Don’t overfill the tin.
Baking The Lemon Bundt Cake
- Place the Bundt tin into the centre of the oven and bake for 50 minutes.
- Note – a skewer cannot be used to test if the cake is baked because of the lemon curd layer.
- The cake is baked when it is golden brown, slightly coming away from the sides and with no visable wobble. If you are unsure, return the tin to the oven for a further 5 minutes.
- As soon as the cake is baked remove from the oven and leave to cool in its tin for 15 minutes and then turn out onto a cooling rack.
- You can see the area at the top of the photo where the cake stuck. Fortunately I was able to remove the stuck piece of cake and press it back onto the top of the Bundt.
Making The Icing And Decorating The Cake
Place the juice of the other half of the lemon into a small bowl. Add 200g of the icing sugar and stir thoroughly. The icing should be very thick and need encouragement to drip. If the icing is not thick enough add the rest of the icing sugar.
Drizzle and drape the thick, lemon icing over the cake. I used 2 teaspoons, one to add the icing and the other to start/stop the drape effect.
Looking at the cake above, nobody would ever guess at the minor mishaps that had taken place!
I’m a sucker for sprinkles and sparkles. I finished this cake with some white sugar sprinkles.
The taste of this cake was amazing. Very lemony without being over tart, or over sweet. A beautifully moist cake that, as a family, we all loved and needless to say it didn’t last long!
Have you ever had any memorable baking disasters? Have you managed to fix a mishap, without anyone knowing? Do you have any to ‘fix’ tips? Please share them?
If you like the recipe for this Luscious Lemon Bundt Cake then you will may also enjoy these:
Caramel Crunch Chocolate Bundt Cake
Maple Syrup Iced Coffee Bundt Cake
Baking Bundt cakes is so easy as the bundt pan creates the cake shape as it bakes. So if you are like me and not very confident at decorating cakes, bundt pans are the answer! While the cakes included in this post all have some form of icing or drizzle, they don’t have to be. Because a light dusting of icing sugar, or edible glitter, such as this Chocolate Cherry Chiffon Bundt Cake, is all that is needed to accent the baked cake. So you can be confident of creating a show stopper without the stress of cake decorating!
So, whatever you are making, baking and creating in your kitchens, have fun preparing and sharing your feast.
Sammie xx
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The header and first photograph are curtesy of my friend David Bartonmus, a talented baker among his other talents. Why not take a look at his blog.
