Lemon Raspberry Buttermilk Bundt Cake

I used my heart shaped bundt pan for the first time and I am so happy everything turned out nice.  

For Valentine's Day, I thought it would be a romantic treat for the whole family to have a heart shaped cake studded with red berries.  Frozen raspberries were perfect for this cake.  

Bundt cakes have a dense, tight crumb.  It is great with tea, coffee or a tall glass of milk.  The batter was very thick.  Fresh raspberries would not be able to stand up to the batter while mixing, so the frozen berries were perfect.  Even if the berries were all bashed up, it would still be lovely.  

I had my reservations about removing the cake from the pan.  Would it stick?  

Whew!  I gently ran butter knife around the cake and slowly coaxed it out.  Luckily, it all came out in one piece.  I used melted butter to grease the pan.  This recipe is from Smitten Kitchen.  I love her recipes, but often it is very high in butter and sugar.  I usually decrease the sugar and butter to our milder, lighter palate. 

Wow!  The icing on the cake really makes it look so pretty.  I only made half of the glaze.  I thought that it was sweet enough.  You can taste the slight tangy bite from the lemon glaze and tart raspberries.  

Lemon Raspberry Buttermilk Bundt Cake

Cake

2 1/2 cups (355 grams) plus 2 tablespoons (20 grams) all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons (10 grams) baking powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt or table salt
1 cup (8 ounces or 225 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature (I used 3/4 cup) 
1 3/4 cups (340 grams) granulated sugar (I cut down to 1 cup)
Zest of 1 lemon (used 1/2 tsp lemon extract instead)
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup (175 ml) buttermilk (or 1 Tbsp lemon juice and fill with milk to 3/4 cup)
3 cups (350 to 450 grams) mixed berries (I used 3 cups frozen raspberries)

Glaze (I halved the amount of glaze:  1 cup powdered sugar, juice of half lemon & 1.5 tsp butter)  
2 cups (240 grams) powdered or confections’ sugar 
Juice of 1 lemon (half gram)
1 tablespoon (15 grams) unsalted butter, very, very soft

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Generously grease a 10-cup Bundt non-stick pan with butter or a nonstick spray.  If using nonstick spray, dust the pan with flour to ensure no sticking.  Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk or sift 2 1/2 cups flour (save the additional 2 Tbsp flour for the berries at a later step), baking powder and salt together.   

In the bowl of a stand mixer or large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and lemon zest (or extract) until light and impossibly fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Then, with the mixer on a low speed, add your eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between each addition. Beat in vanilla, briefly. 

Add 1/3 flour mixture to batter, beating until just combined, followed by half the buttermilk, another 1/3 of the flour mixture, the remaining buttermilk and remaining flour mixture. Scrape down from time to time and don’t mix any more than you need to.

Toss the berries with the remaining 2 tablespoons of flour. With a silicon spatula, gently fold the berries into the cake batter. The batter will be very thick and this will seem impossible without squishing the berries a little, but just do your best and remember that squished berries do indeed make for a pretty batter.  Spread cake batter — you might find it easier to plop it in the pan in large spoonfuls, because it’s so thick — in the prepared baking pan and spread the top smooth. 

Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, rotating the cake 180 degrees after 30 (to make sure it browns evenly). The cake is done as soon as a tester comes out clean of batter. 

Set cake pan on a wire rack to cool for 30 minutes, before inverting the cake onto a serving platter to cool the rest of the way. Cool completely. Once cool, whisk together the powdered sugar, lemon juice and butter until smooth and very, very thick. (If you’d like it thinner, add more juice, but I like the thick drippiness of it, seen above.) Spread carefully over top of cake, letting it trickle down the sides when and where it wishes. Serve at once or keep it covered at room temperature for 3 to 4 days.

- Adapted from Smitten Kitchen:  Triple Berry Summer Buttermilk Bundt

This cake did not last long! It was a little on the tart side due to the raspberries and lemon glaze.  The kiddies prefer things that are not too sweet and slightly tart.  If you prefer sweeter, use the full amount of sugar or use a blend of sweeter berries.  

Enjoy!

Pin It

Meyer Lemon, Roasted Garlic and Sundried Tomato Hummus

Hummus is a tasty Middle-Eastern chickpea dip that has become very popular here in North America.  I have been playing around with this healthy high protein dish lately and surprisingly, my 8 year old son has fallen in love with it.  

Most basic hummus recipes are comprised of chickpeas, garlic, olive oil, tahini (sesame seed paste), lemon juice and salt.  

I was inspired by the different flavours of hummus at the supermarket:  sundried tomato, roasted red peppers, roasted garlic and traditional.  Out of curiosity, I added 2 heads of roasted garlic, the juice and zest of 1 Meyer lemon and 2 cut up sun-dried tomatoes to the chickpea mixture.  Wow.  It was very tasty and my three-year old wanted to dip her carrot sticks in it.  Even my two older children ended up eating this by the spoonfuls!  I think this will be the way I make hummus from now on.  As long as I have Meyer lemons, roasted garlic and sun-dried tomatoes, I am very happy!   Meyer lemons are known to be sweeter and less acidic (less "pucker") than regular lemons.  

I bought a huge bag of garlic bulbs on sale and made a big batch of roasted garlic.  Once roasted, I froze the individual cloves of roasted garlic and stored them in a zipped sandwich baggie.  To use, thaw the frozen cloves of roasted garlic for 20-30 seconds in the microwave before adding to the food processor.   

Sesame oil is always in my Asian pantry, so I didn't have to go buy tahini.  I love the intense flavour of sesame oil, so you only need a little. 

This recipe is very flexible. You can use tahini instead of sesame oil, add more or less of any ingredient to your taste.  You may try a few cloves of roasted garlic first and taste as you go.  That's how I ended up adding up to 2 heads of roasted garlic!  Once made, the cumin and sesame flavours are pretty strong, but after a few hours, everything mellows nicely. 

Meyer Lemon, Roasted Garlic and Sun-dried Tomato Hummus

1- 19oz can chickpeas or 2 1/4 cups cooked chickpeas

2 heads of roasted garlic*, or 14 roasted garlic cloves

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 to 1 1/2 tsp cumin powder

1/4 tsp sesame oil 

juice and zest of 1 Meyer lemon (about 2-3 Tbsp juice)

2 diced sundried tomatoes, packed in olive oil

2-4 Tbsp water, only add until thickness is desired

1/4 tsp kosher salt, or to taste

Place all ingredients except water into a food processor or blender.  Blend until desired texture.  Add water in small increments until desired thickness.  

Serve with your favourite veggies, pita bread, chips, crackers, as a spread, in a wrap or in a sandwich.  

*To roast garlic, cut 1/4"-1/2" off the tops of the garlic bulbs and place them together on a large piece of aluminum foil.  Drizzle a couple of teaspoons over all the heads and wrap them up tightly in a nice neat package.  Roast them for 35-40 min at 400F.  

Enjoy!

Pin It

Fluffy Cooked Flour Buttercream Frosting

Lately, the kiddies have been complaining that frosting/icing on cakes have been too sweet.  I am glad that they told me.  It explains why they only eat two bites of a store-bought cake and leave the rest for me and hubby to finish.  It is a difficult task when we go to birthday parties, and my 3 kiddies leave their barely touched cakes for me to finish! 

It was so nice to stumble across "the Perfect Cupcake Frosting and Filling" from OurBestBites. This cooked flour frosting uses considerably less sugar (1/2 cup) than conventional buttercream (about 2 cups).  I had to try it!  It is very fluffy and not too sweet.  It is best made fresh to preserve its creamy fluffiness.  If refrigerated, the butter content will solidify in the fridge, and the frosting will get firm.  It didn't bother us, as they were quickly devoured cold from the fridge without any complaints. 

A cooked paste (roux) is made from flour and milk over the stove and then cooled.

The milk and flour was cooked over the stove over medium heat. Make sure there are no lumps.  Notice how runny it is.  

When the flour gets cooked, it becomes a thick paste.  Remove from heat and place in a bowl to cool. 

Cover the flour paste with clear plastic wrap and refrigerate to prevent the being formed on top.  Make sure it is completely cooled so the butter will not melt when it is added.   The cooled flour/milk paste is added to butter and sugar and then it is whipped for approximately 6-8 minutes until a fluffy frosting develops.

Instead of vanilla extract, I used lemon extract and a few drops of yellow food colouring.  I piped this frosting with a Wilton 1M tip on top of a simple vanilla cupcake.  I knew it was pretty good when the kiddies inhaled their cupcakes and my son wanted another one!  I asked him if it was too sweet and he said it was "SO GOOD"! 

[edited January 16, 2013] By request, I pulled out my digital scale and converted my Canadian "cup" measurements to weight in grams and ounces.  The recipe below has the ingredients by weight now!  

Fluffy Cooked Flour Buttercream Frosting
- lightly frosts 12 cupcakes 

3 tablespoon all-purpose flour, plain flour
1/2 cup homo milk (I used 1%)
1/2 cup butter (I used 1/3 cup)

1/2 cup granulated (caster) sugar (not powdered sugar) (I used 1/3 cup)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract or other flavour you wish (I used lemon extract)

- optional food colouring (I used 2 drops of yellow)

OR

Converted the recipe to units by weight:
3/4 oz (23g) plain flour
4 oz (110g) full-fat milk (I used 1%)
4 oz (110g) butter (I used approx 65g)
3 1/2oz (95g) caster sugar (not powdered sugar) (I used 65g)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or other flavour you wish (I used lemon extract)
- optional food colouring (I used 2 drops of yellow)

Whisk together the flour and the milk. Heat in a small sauce pan on medium heat.

Whisk continuously until it starts to thicken. Let it cook, while stirring with a rubber spatula, until you can start to see the bottom of the pan.   Continue to cook until mixture has the consistency of thick pudding or paste.

Put  mixture in the fridge and let it cool completely, it’s fine if it stays in there long enough to get chilly, you just don’t want it warm at all. As it’s cooling, feel free to stir it occasionally to speed up the process and keep it from forming a crust on top.

It an electric stand mixer, beat the butter and the sugar for a minute or two until well combined and fluffy. You’ll want to use the whisk attachment on a stand mixer if you have one, instead of the flat paddle. Then while beating, add in the thickened milk mixture and the vanilla. Beat to combine and then scrape down the sides. Mixture will separate and look messy, keep beating!  Continue beating until mixture comes together and is light and fluffy, about 7-8 minutes, but time varies.  Take a sample of frosting between your fingers; frosting is done when light and fluffy and sugar granules are dissolved.

- Adapted from "Our Best Bites:  the Perfect Cupcake Frosting and Filling".  

 Enjoy!

Pin It

Meyer Lemon Squares

Spring Break is here!  I have my 3 little monkeys home for 2 glorious weeks AND I will be cooking and baking up a frenzy to quiet their bottomless bellies...  

I discovered Meyer lemons at my local grocery store so I immediately grabbed a $3 bag.  After reading 100 things to do with a Meyer lemon a while back, I had to try it and see what the hype was about.  So I made Meyer lemon curd and didn't like the horribly bitter aftertaste. I salvaged that mess by making ice cream with it.  Much better!  

I still had a few lemons left, so I made my favourite lemon square recipe, adapted from my Betty Crocker cookbook.  The juice was still tart, but it lacked that zesty lemony zing.  Meyer lemon juice is supposed to be less acidic than regular lemon juice. 

I don't like my desserts too sweet and too sour, so if you like a really zippy lemon square, you could double the lemon juice.  I cut down the sugar by 1/3 in the filling to get a light and smooth lemony filling on top of a crunchy, buttery shortbread crust. With the Meyer lemons, the squares turned out much sweeter but the family didn't get a chance to complain when they inhaled them for breakfast!

I just realized that I have made these for almost 20 years!  I usually double the recipe for a 9"x13" pan with great results.  They can also be made in advance and frozen for a month or so.  Definitely a recipe that my children would appreciate when they are old enough to make it themselves. 

Meyer Lemon Squares

Crust:  

1 cup all-purpose flour 

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup powdered sugar

Filling:  

2/3 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons grated lemon peel, if desired

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350ºF.  Mix flour, butter and powdered sugar. Press in ungreased square pan, 8x8x2 or 9x9x2 inches, building up 1/2-inch edges. Bake crust 20 minutes.  

Beat granulated sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice, baking powder, salt and eggs with electric mixer on high speed about 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Pour over hot crust. 

Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until no indentation remains when touched lightly in center. Cool; dust with powdered sugar. Cut into about 1 1/2-inch squares. 

- Adapted from Betty Crocker's Luscious Lemon Squares

Of course, I had to share them with an amazing friend, who just had her FOURTH baby girl a few weeks ago!

Enjoy!

Pin It