Bonus Cake Redux

The week of the Red Velvet Cake debacle we had friends over for dinner.  Since I'd thrown away the rest of the Red Velvet cake, and we didn't have any dessert to offer, I pulled a frozen Red Devil Cake out of the freezer.  The kids and I discussed what to do for the frosting, with my son taking the lead.  He pulled all the extracts out of the cupboard and wanted me to make multiple frosting flavors, and cover quarters of the cake each with a different one.  I talked him down to two flavors (orange and lemon) to go into a cream cheese frosting, with food coloring to help us distinguish which was which.  I used store-bought lemon curd to fill the middle of the cake (one layer sliced in half), but mixed it with some cream cheese frosting, since there wasn't quite enough curd to fill the whole.

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures - it wasn't a new cake so I didn't document it.  It was pretty, with half a yellow side and half an orange side, but more importantly it was delicious.  Maybe partly because it was familiar.  This has been our stand-by birthday cake for years, and it's so reliable and tasty.  But after all these new cakes it was interesting to go to back again to an old stand-by and realize how yummy it was.  It's moist, rich, dense and flavorful - and with the inclusion of beets and oil (instead of butter), it feels a little healthier than some of the other cakes I've tried.  We ended up not giving any of this cake away - my husband, kids, and I ate thin slices for the rest of the week, and speaking for myself, really enjoyed this old favorite.

Cake #15 - The Naughty Senator: Peppermint and Chocolate Rum Marble Cake

This was my first cake out of the All Cakes Considered cookbook by NPR producer Melissa Gray.  I've enjoyed reading her cookbook, but I don't love the way the book is designed and formatted.  Gray did a cake project where she took a cake a week to work (unlike me, she didn't eat some first and keep several slices for home).  See my post about her project.

My son loves mint - he has since he was a little guy - and so this seemed a good one to try.  It's the first marbled cake I've ever made and I loved how the two batters (one chocolate and one pale green) looked together - this is a really pretty cake in slices.  (It doesn't look like much as a whole baked cake.)  

I was, however, disappointed by its taste.  The chocolate didn't seem chocolaty enough.  The mint was fine but maybe mint-flavored cake just isn't my thing.  And the rum flavor didn't come through even with the glaze.  My son loved it though.  Both kids had thin slices of it after breakfast several days this week.

Gray lists the rum glaze as optional, so I only tried it on half the cake.  I took the unglazed half to work and part of the glazed half to a friend.  At work, someone said that the cake was good but dry.  People who tasted the glazed half (including my husband) loved it.  I would say the glaze isn't optional.  It's a very tender cake with a fine crumb, and it is a bit dry without the glaze.

(Because the glaze has alcohol in it, I did some internet research about whether the alcohol remains in the cooked glaze.  At least one source, citing actual tests, claimed that much of the alcohol does remain, even after heating.  So, if you're serving to kids or to people avoiding alcohol, you may want to adapt the glaze.  It's very little actual rum, so I didn't worry about my kids, but I'm sure some people would.)

Gray suggests other variations (listed at the end of the recipe), which I think I might try.  Chocolate and almond sound good, but there would have to be some way to bump up the chocolate flavor in that part of the cake.  Maybe I should look for other recipes to compare it to, and see if other recipes include actual melted chocolate.  (Of course there are plenty of chocolate cake recipes that only use cocoa that are perfectly chocolaty - I'm not sure at this point what the difference is.)  Hard to say if I should try to revamp this recipe or look for another...maybe I'll know more once I've tried other cakes from this cookbook.

The cake name doesn't make much sense without Gray's anecdotes about U.S. Senators and their bad behavior, which inspired the cake flavors, and the moniker.  

The Naughty Senator: Peppermint and Chocolate Rum Marble Cake

2 cups sugar

¼ cup unsweetened cocoa

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter at room temperature

4 large eggs

3½ cups sifted cake flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

2 teaspoons peppermint flavoring or extract

3-4 drops of green food coloring

2 teaspoons rum or rum extract

For the glaze:

1/3 cup unsalted butter

¾ cup sugar

3 tablespoons water

2 teaspoons light rum

1.       Center a rack and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a 10-inch bundt pan.

2.       In a small bowl, combine ½ cup of the sugar and all the cocoa.  Set aside.

3.       With the mixer, cream the butter at medium speed, gradually adding the remaining 1½ cups of sugar.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

4.       In a separate bowl, dry whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together.

5.       With the mixer on low speed, add 1 cup of the flour mixture, beat, then add 1/3 cup of the milk and beat again.  Repeat until all of the flour mixture and milk are blended into the batter.  Beat on medium-high speed for 2 to 3 minutes.

6.       Pour half of the batter into a clean medium bowl. 

7.       Add the peppermint flavoring and a couple of drops of green food coloring to own bowl of batter.  NOTE: Don’t use too much food coloring, just enough to get it a pastel green.  Mix well.

8.       Pour two thirds of the now green batter into the bottom of the cake pan.  Set aside the remaining green batter.

9.       Clean off your mixer beaters, dry, and return them to the mixer.

10.   Add the cocoa and sugar mixture to the yellow batter and add the rum or rum extract.  Beat until smooth.

11.   Using your spatula, pour the chocolate-flavored batter over the green batter in the cake pan.

12.   Layer the remaining third of the green batter over the chocolate batter.  Then marble.  Marbling: Light fold the batter in the pan to get the marble effect – but don’t fully fold the ingredients together.  Take a small spatula or plastic knife and cut through the middle of the batter ring to the bottom of the pan.  Bring the spatula or plastic knife toward you and then up toward the side of the pan.  Rotate the cake pan with your other hand and repeat.  You’ll do 2 rotations total.  No more.

13.   Bake for 1 hour until the cake tests done.

14.   For the glaze: Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Add the sugar, water, and rum and stir until smooth.  Remove from the heat.

15.   As soon as the cake is out of the oven, before removing it from the pan, take a skewer and poke holes through it.  Then pour three-quarters of the glaze over the top of the cake.  Let cool in the pan for 10 to 15 minutes.

16.   Unmold the cake onto a cake rack and let cool for 10 more minutes.  Put a plate under the rack and drizzle the rest of the glaze over the cake.

17.   Variations:  For a different flavor combination, you can keep half of the batter chocolate without the rum, and flavor the other half with 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract OR 1 teaspoon of almond extract OR 1 teaspoon of cheer extract, instead of peppermint.

From All Cakes Considered by Melissa Gray

Multi-day Cake

My mom's 71st birthday was Tuesday and tomorrow we're having a small brunch to celebrate.  One of my favorite cake cookbooks is Extraordinary Cakes by Karen Krasne, who has an amazing restaurant in San Diego called Extraordinary Desserts.  One of my unofficial goals with my cake project is to work up to doing a cake out of Krasne's cookbook.  (I've had it out from the library on two separate occasions and still haven't tried a recipe.)

Krasne talks about having a multi-day cake plan.  You bake the layers on one day, make the syrup and fillings another day, assemble on a third day and freeze the cake, and then make the frosting, frost the cake, and serve on the fourth day.  When you read that it seems kinda crazy (FOUR days to make a cake), but for my mom's mocha cake, I've done something similar.

Wednesday night I baked the cake layers and put them in the fridge.  Tonight I made the whipped cream filling, sliced the layers, assembled them with the filling in a spring form pan, wrapped it all in saran wrap, and put it in the freezer.  Tomorrow morning I'm going to attempt to make real buttercream frosting and frost the cake.

I bought super fancy, minimally pasteurized whipping cream (as recommended by my Moosewood cookbook) at Whole Foods and it made for a delicious vanilla whipped cream filling I put between the layers.  I'm excited to try actual buttercream frosting.  I'll update with recipes and pictures.

Martha Stewart Cake Cookbook?! Yes!!

On my last flight I picked up a Martha Stewart Living Magazine at the airport newsstand, because the cover offered a "foolproof chocolate cake."  As it turned out the recipe was a tease for a soon-to-be-published cookbook, "Martha Stewart's Cakes"

I don't mean to be providing free advertising for an already overly imperialistic corporation, and I know that Martha Stewart's recipes can be inconsistent and at times unreliable, BUT, as in terms of her recipe format, Martha Stewart (Inc.) offers just what I like.

By this point I've looked at dozens of cake and dessert cookbooks.  My perfect formula is: 1) a picture for every recipe; 2) a short description of what makes the final product special or distinctive; 3) a group of recipes that each offer something different from the rest; and 4) simple and beautifully presented desserts.

The crazy thing is that most cookbooks don't illustrate all the recipes.  In this era of publishing, I don't understand that at all.  Of course, I am a visual person, and I choose recipes based on how the cake looks, and I want to know what I'm trying to create.  My Moosewood cookbooks, which are super reliable, and are my go-to source, don't illustrate ANY of the recipes.  Two of my new current favorites, Vintage Cakes and Cake Simple, illustrate some of the recipes.  And in the bookstore I have to resist buying the food porn cookbooks (like Williams Sonoma) which seem like they're more about the photography than the recipes.

But I'm looking forward to this new Martha Stewart book - out at the end of September - because it's just the right blend of the cookbook components that I know I like.  I guess that's the benefit of a franchise with a well-defined brand: you know exactly what you're getting.

Cake #14 - Red Velvet Cake with Mascarpone Cream Cheese Frosting

You know how they say you learn more from a failure than from a success.  This cake is a perfect example of that truism.  I made this cake to coincide with a visit from a dear college friend and her two daughters.  I had proposed this cake, which seemed like it would be kid-friendly and a good one to have in my repertoire.  I baked in advance of their visit, and frosted the cake literally as they were walking in the door.  But by then, I was already concerned that the cake wasn't going to be good.

I had made the recipe as directed, but had substituted pastry flour for the cake flour.  The reason I had done this was my Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts had said this about cake flour, "Cake flour is a low-protein, soft wheat flour that is heavily chlorinated or bleached to inhibit its ability to form gluten with liquids.  It bonds more readily with fats and absorbs liquids faster than other flours, making for especially light, delicate cakes.  At Moosewood, we don't use cake flour because we believe the fewer chemicals in our food and environment, the better."  I certainly didn't want chemical filled cake, so I had been substituting pastry flour where ever a cake recipe called for cake flour.

I suspected something wasn't right when the cakes weren't done when the timer went.  My oven is relatively new, and must be pretty true to temperature, because almost all cakes are done precisely when recipes suggest they will be.  But this recipe said the cake was done when the top sprang back.  And it took 6 extra minutes (on top of a brief 30 minute bake time) to get a springy center.  So, I was worried the cakes might be over cooked.

Then, when I took them out of the pan, they easily crumbled along the edges.  I knew that wasn't a good sign.  But with cake there's no way to pre-taste, so I forged ahead.

It turned out that my friend's elder daughter had her 9th birthday the next day, so after a yummy pizza and salad dinner, we put candles in the cake, sang happy birthday and sliced up what looked like a beautiful cake.  As it turned out the cake was very dry and crumbly.  The mascarpone frosting was delicious, and almost made the cake edible.  Almost.  Lots of cake was left on plates.  My friend was very kind and complimented the cake, and I didn't want to apologize for it, so I tried not to.  But I was realizing what had happened.  First of all, you can't substitute pastry flour for cake flour.  Second of all, my pastry flour is "whole grain."  Maybe all pastry flour is whole grain, but I'm wondering if it is like the whole wheat version of pastry flour, and therefore appropriate for carrot cake, but not for what was supposed to be a fine crumb chocolate cake.

I realized that I had also used this whole grain pastry flour in the crumbly zucchini cake I had made.  Maybe the whole grain aspect of the flour was making things crumbly?

When I returned to the Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts and re-read their entry on cake flour, it said, "To approximate cake flour, replace 2 tablespoons of bleached all-purpose flour with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch per each cup of bleached all-purpose flour."  Oh.  I headed to Whole Foods, thinking that I'd be able to find a more natural version of cake flour.  Standing in front of an impossibly vast wall of flour options, it was my son who spotted  the lone box (on the bottom shelf) of unbleached cake flour blend by King Arthur Flour.  It says, "Unbleached flour for cake and pastry recipes.  Enjoy moist, tender cakes without added chemicals."  The ingredients?  Unbleached flour and unmodified cornstarch.

Okay, so what did I learn?  1) With my oven, something is wrong if it's not done when the recipe says it should be.  2) Cake flour and pastry flour aren't interchangeable.  3) Moosewood isn't lying when they say flour + cornstarch can be used as cake flour.  4) I need to further investigate what kinds of pastry flour exist, because what I'm using is probably not the right thing.  5) If you read the recipes closely, and the cookbook notes thoroughly, you can probably avoid a mistake like mine.  But then you won't have gained the knowledge from messing it up and figuring it out.

I threw the rest of the cake away.  I've never done that before.  But when you've got more cake coming next week, there's no reason to eat bad cake.

I'm looking forward to trying this recipe again, with the flour + cornstarch substitution.  I bet it's wonderful.

[No pictures of this cake.  There was no time before I served it, and after I'd tasted it, I wasn't so eager to document it.]

Red Velvet Cake with Mascarpone Cream Cheese Frosting

2½ cups sifted cake flour

½ cup (2 ounces) lightly packed premium unsweetened Dutch-processed cocoa [must be “Dutch-processed” or say “treated with alkaline” or “alkalized” to work]

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

¾ cup canola oil

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 tablespoon red food coloring, either gel or liquid (gel color is more intense)

¾ cup (6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1¾ cups sugar

4 eggs, at room temperature

2 egg yolks, at room temperature

1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature

Mascarpone Cream Cheese Frosting

8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

8 ounces mascarpone, cold

½ cup heavy cream, cold

1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1.       Center an oven rack and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease, line with parchment, and dust with flour two 9-inch cake pans.

2.       In a small bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt, then whisk the ingredients by hand to ensure they are well mixed.

3.       In another small bowl, combine the oil, vanilla and food coloring.

4.       In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar together on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 5 minutes.  As you make the batter, stop the mixer frequently and scrape the paddle and sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.  With your mixer on low speed, drizzle the oil mixture into the batter until well combined.  Turn the mixer gradually up to medium-high speed (avoid splashing the red batter) and beat until fluffy again.  Blend in the eggs and egg yolks one at a time, adding the next one as soon as the previous one has disappeared into the batter.  With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk in two parts, beginning and ending with the flour.  After each addition, mix until just barely blended and stop and scrape the bowl.  Stop the mixer before the last of the flour has been incorporated and complete the blending by hand with a rubber spatula to ensure you do not overbeat the batter.

5.       Divide the batter evenly into the prepared pans (there will be approximately 1 pound 10 ounces per pan) and smooth the tops.  Rap the pans firmly on the counter to release any air bubbles.  Place the pans in the middle of the oven and bake until the centers of the cake spring back when lightly touched, 28 to 30 minutes.  Cool on a rack for 30 minutes before removing from the pans.  Take extra care when removing the cakes from the pans, as they are fragile and could crack.  Leave the parchment paper on until you assemble the cake.  Continue to cool the cakes on a rack, top side up, until they reach room temperature.

6.       For the frosting: Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese until it is uniform in texture.  Add the mascarpone, cream, and sugar.  Beat on low speed until combined, scraping the sides of the bowl well to ensure all the ingredients are incorporated.  Kick the mixer up to high speed and blend the frosting for about 1 minute or until it looks creamy and thick. Turn down to low speed, add the vanilla, and mix just until blended.

7.       This frosting keeps in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.  If the frosting is refrigerated before you use it, it will need to be softened slightly by blending with a rubber spatula until smooth.

8.       To assemble the cake, place one of the layers, top side up, on a serving plate.  Using a metal spatula, spread half of the frosting over the top of the cake, spreading it slightly over the edge of the cake.  Place the next layer of cake (top side up again) on top of the frosted layer.  Spread the remainder of the frosting over the top of the cake.

9.       The cake is great the day it is made but can be kept for up to 2 days in an airtight container in the refrigerator (keep it refrigerated due to the frosting).  Allow as least 1 hour for the cake to come to room temperature before serving.

From Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson

Hawaiian Coconut Cake

Last week I was in Honolulu, giving a talk about Ansel Adams at the Honolulu Museum of Art.  (If you're curious about the exhibition I was speaking with, here's a link: Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keeffe: The Hawaii Pictures)  One of the exhibition sponsors was the Halekulani Hotel on Waikiki Beach, and part of the sponsorship was rooms the museum could use.  I got two of those hotel nights, and let me tell you, the Halekulani is one of the most amazing hotels I've ever visited.  It was gorgeous.  I had a stunning view from my 14th floor room.

My first night, I ate at one of the hotel restaurants, House without a Key, and had delicious barbecued sea bass.  (The restaurant is right along the water's edge, next to the non-palm tree, to the right of center in the above picture.)  When I saw a coconut cake on the dessert menu I couldn't help myself.  

I was eating alone (which I don't particularly like to do) so I had been availing myself of entertainment on the iPhone.  Once I had ordered the cake, I wondered if I could find the recipe online.  A few seconds and a google search later and I had the ingredient list and instructions in front of me.  It's a sponge cake with an amaretto custard filling and a whipped cream frosting.  It was incredibly light with a beautiful texture.  I felt the amaretto flavoring in the custard could have been more pronounced (although maybe the mai tai I was drinking was clouding my taste buds, or my perception).

So, this is a preview of cake to be attempted in the future. 

In case you want to try it too, here's the recipe: Halekulani Coconut Cake from Food.com

Cake #13 - Flourless Chocolate Cake

I love chocolate as much as the next gal, but I must admit I've never been a connoisseur of flourless chocolate cakes.  I've never imagined making one and I haven't paid close attention to the ones I've had in the past.  My mother-in-law was visiting, and so I asked her what kind of cake she liked.  When she said, "Chocolate," a flourless chocolate cake seemed the way to go.  

This one was from my Moosewood cookbook - pretty reliable for having well-tested recipes.  It described the cake as, "Less dense than most flourless cakes, this one has a drier, mousse-like texture."

It didn't take me long to realize why I had never made a flourless chocolate cake before.  I'm totally spooked by the process of folding in whipped egg whites.  I understand the idea - you create volume by beating the egg whites, and then you have to maintain the volume, so you don't stir too much which would deflate the beaten whites; instead you have to fold gently so as to blend without deflating.  I anticipated the folding step with concern.  Apparently I don't like the idea of a recipe where I could fail.  But having started a cake challenge, I wasn't going to let apprehension about deflated egg whites stop me now.

As I was doing it, I wasn't at all sure I was folding properly, and all the while I was thinking - have I gone too far, have I mixed instead of folded, is this right?!  But it looked beautiful, and the batter did taste quite yummy.  [I lick the bowl and beaters with every cake I make.  My daughter finds it one of life's injustices that I get to eat batter with "raw" in it and she doesn't.]

When the cake came out of the oven it was puffed and gorgeous just like a souffle.  Over the next several minutes, I could watch it shrink before my eyes.  After an hour, my husband said it looked like it had shrunk at the dry cleaners.  

I made a vanilla bean whipped cream (heavy cream, powdered sugar, and the inside of a vanilla bean) and the combination of cool whipped cream and the rich chocolate cake was pretty amazing.  Later in the week I served it with a store-bought raspberry sauce and that was pretty phenomenal too.  It can be eaten alone, but I found something to contrast the intense chocolate made it better.  An almond or mocha flavored whipped cream could be good too.

As I wrote on facebook about how a flourless chocolate cake was out of my comfort zone, a friend posted that she had a recipe for a great one her grandmother makes.  I've got to get her recipe and see how it compares.  

Flourless Chocolate Cake

½ cup butter

6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate (measure by weight)

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate (measure by weight)

8 eggs

½ cup sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon salt

1.       Preheat oven to 275 degrees.

2.       In a saucepan on low heat, melt the butter with the semisweet and unsweetened chocolates, stirring constantly to facilitate melting and prevent scorching.  [Or melt in the microwave in short intervals of 20-30 seconds, at 50% power.]  Set aside and let cool to room temperature.

3.       While the chocolate is cooling, butter and flour a 9-inch springform pan.  [Can use cocoa powder instead of flour.]

4.       Separate the egg whites and yolks into two bowls.  [Crack each egg into a clean bowl, then add to the others.  That way if a yolk breaks, it only ruins one white, instead of all of them.]  Using an electric mixer with clean and dry beaters, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.  Gradually add the sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.  Set aside. 

5.       When the chocolate has cooled, stir it into the egg yolks along with the vanilla and salt and mix thoroughly.  Fold in the egg whites until no trace of the whites remain.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the center is set, about 1 hour.  Cool in the springform pan before removing to a serving dish – the cake may fall somewhat as it cools.

From Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts by The Moosewood Collective

You may find this surprising, but Tucson is not NYC

When I was in New York for work in March, I was running a little early for a meeting and found myself walking past New York Cake and Baking Supply.  I popped in and was blown away by what I found - cake pans of every shape and size, cake toppers, cookie cutters, spatulas in multiple colors, and more sprinkles than I had ever seen in my life.  I took a picture and texted it to my sister, who has a way with cake decorating.

She wrote back commenting something about how we could easily spend a fortune there.  I restrained myself and got out with a set of flower cookie cutters, some edible gold dust, and a mini-cakes pan with butterfly and ladybug shapes.  I probably spent twenty minutes admiring all the aisles of goodies and imagining all the lovely things I could make (if I didn't have a full time job and had a kitchen like Martha Stewart). 

When I got home, the kids and I did make some sugar cookies and had a fun time decorating them.

 

So, fast forward to August 1st - I'm 11 weeks into my cake project and want a fancy bundt pan I've seen pictured in a couple of cookbooks.  I had passed a cake supply place in Phoenix, but haven't had time to stop there, so I looked up cake supply stores in Tucson.  Pat's Cake Supply was purported to have cardboard cake rounds (which I wanted) and loads of cake toppers.  Lilah and I headed out on a cake supply mission, only to realize that Tucson is not NYC, and Pat's Cake Supply basically had cardboard cake rounds and loads of cake toppers.  And not much else.  We were in the store about 90 seconds - as long as it took me to pick up and pay for my cardboard cake rounds. 

 

I had already looked for my fancy bundt pan at Target, and there are other cooking stores in Tucson - and it occurred to me that Williams Sonoma might have the pan, but then the light bulb went on over my head.  Ever since 1996 there's been this thing called the internet, and one of the things they do there is sell stuff.  For a second I couldn't believe I had even tried to find my fancy pan in a store.  Seriously, what was I thinking!  Within a few minutes the Nordic Ware pan had been located on amazon.com and purchased (with free shipping).

 

I'm psyched about my new pan, probably on its way to me as I type.  And it didn't take me as long to figure out that when I couldn't find pink peppercorns at Safeway or Whole Foods, I would probably find them more quickly online. 

Oh, and New York Cake and Baking Supply does mail order:
http://www.nycake.com/

 

 

Cake #12 - Lemon Basil Bundt Cake

This is a delicious and beautiful little cake - made in a 6-cup pan, rather than the normal 10- or 12-cup bundt pan.  It's a little different from the cakes I've made recently in that it uses Greek yogurt and vegetable oil rather than butter and milk or buttermilk.

It's the first recipe I've made from the cookbook Cake Simple that is all bundt cake recipes.  It has several steps once the cake is baked - a syrup that moistens the cake, a powdered sugar glaze, and then a crunchy sugar topping.  The author, Christie Matheson, presents the various additional syrups, glazes and toppings as optional steps, but it seemed worth trying them all initially, and I'm glad I did.

There's no basil in the cake, so it is added in the layers of toppings.  The syrup has some basil flavor, but it's very subtle and almost floral.  I'm not sure I would have identified basil in the syrup.  The glaze, however, has a distinct basil flavor, so I was disappointed when the glaze was so thin that it didn't really coat the cake well.  If I were doing it again, I'd add more powdered sugar to create a thicker glaze.  The sugar topping is really pretty, and the crunch it adds seems worth it.  I ended up with both glaze and sugar left over - possibly enough for another cake.

It was a very pretty cake, and at each step I couldn't help making a picture.  I liked my new little Nordic Ware pan, and it created such a beautiful crust on the cake.  I'm excited to try the sister recipe to this one - a Mojito cake with mint and lime!

Lemon Basil Bundt Cake

Melted butter for greasing the pan

1½ cups all- purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pan

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup Greek yogurt

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

Zest of 2 lemons

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup vegetable oil

Lemon-Basil Syrup

½ cup granulated sugar

¼ cup water

¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

3 one-inch strips lemon zest

3 sprigs basil

Lemon-Basil Glaze

¼ cup heavy cream

3 tablespoons chopped basil leaves

1½ cups confectioners’ sugar

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Pinch of salt

Lemon-Basil Sugar

¼ cup granulated sugar

½ teaspoon fresh lemon zest

2 basil leaves

1.       Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Brush the inside of a 6-cup Bundt pan thoroughly with the melted butter and dust it lightly with flour.  (Use a pastry brush to help distribute the flour and tap out any excess.)

2.       Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl until thoroughly combined.

3.       In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, whisk the yogurt with the sugar on medium speed until thoroughly combined.  Add the eggs, lemons zest, lemon juice, and vanilla and mix just until incorporated.

4.       With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture and whisk until incorporated.  Gently stir the vegetable oil by hand.

5.       Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smooth the top, and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the cake is golden and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 15 minutes, then invert the cake onto the rack. 

6.       For the syrup:  In a small non-reactive saucepan over medium heat, combine the sugar with the water, lemon juice, lemon zest, and basil and bring to a gentle boil; boil for 10 minutes.  Strain the syrup before brushing it over the warm cake.

7.       For the glaze: In a small nonreactive saucepan over medium-low heat, combine the cream and basil and heat to scalding (when small bubbles form around the edge of the cream but before it begins to boil).  Remove the cream from the heat and let stand for about 5 minutes.  Strain the cream into a medium bowl, then add the confectioners’ sugar, lemon juice, and salt and whisk until smooth.

8.       For the sugar: In a mini-food processor, combine the sugar with the lemon zest and basil and pulse until thoroughly combined.  The sugar will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

9.       While the cake is still warm, brush the syrup over it.  Let the cake cool completely and then drizzle it generously with the glaze.  Sprinkle it with the lemon-basil sugar and serve.  The cake will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for 3 days.

From Cake Simple: Recipes for Bundt-Style Cakes by Christie Matheson