Tag Archives: lemon cake

May 14, 2013 · 8:00 am

Lemon Poke Cupcakes

Poke cake. It’s a great invention.

If you’re unfamiliar, it’s basically a cake with lots of holes poked in the top after it is baked and cooled, then some kind of liquid is poured over the top and allowed to seep into the top and holes.

I made a raspberry lemonade poke cake a while back, see it here.

My mother in law asked me to bring cupcakes to our Mother’s Day lunch, and I immediately decided to make lemon poke cupcakes. Lemon and Mother’s Day just go together to me – I don’t know if its because it’s spring, or if it just reminds me of moms and grandmas, but it always seems to be a big hit so I guess I’m on to something!

These cupcakes couldn’t be easier.

1. Bake lemon cupcakes and let cool completely. I used my favorite boxed mix – Betty! Feel free to use your own recipe. The magic of these is really the glaze anyway.

2. Using a wooden skewer or toothpick, poke 10-12 holes into the top of each cupcake. They should only go about halfway down each cake.

3. Mix together 2/3 cup powdered sugar and 2 tsp lemon juice with a small spatula. (I used bottled lemon juice and it was just as good, though I probably would have used real lemons if I had them.)

4. Using the small spatula, “paint” the glaze on the top of each cupcake. You don’t need a lot, but you do want to get some on on most of the cake. It will slowly seep down into the holes and dry thin.

That’s it!

These cupcakes were so moist and just a little tart. They were a total hit with the family, and I only wish one batch had made more!

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Tagged as icing, lemon, lemon cake

May 18, 2012 · 8:00 am

Lemon and Strawberry Cake

I made this cake for Mother’s Day. Actually I made it twice, one for my mommy, and one for my mother-in-law.

(Sorry the lighting isn’t great in the second one!)

I made 6″ lemon cakes (with the help of my friend Betty), then whipped up some fresh strawberry buttercream. I basically make my standard buttercream, but substituted almost all of the milk for strawberry puree. I added the strawberry first, then slowly added milk a tablespoon at a time until it was the consistency I was looking for.

The picture above makes me happy.

(We’re still working on our kitchen, which is why the walls look funny. It’ll be done soon though, yay!)

Man… this cake was tasty.

Oh yeah and I threw in a middle layer of chopped up strawberries mixed with a few drops of puree and a pinch of sugar. Easy, fresh, and yummy!

After having the first piece at my mother-in-law’s for lunch, my first thought was that I wish I could have more… then I realized I would get another piece after dinner at my parents house that night. 🙂

It was loved by my family members that love sweets, as well as those who don’t care much for them. It was a perfect party cake for a small group.

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Tagged as buttercream, lemon, lemon cake, strawberry

January 3, 2012 · 10:09 pm

Lemon Cake Balls

First things first, I have to make an important distinction that will impact the future of my little baking blog.

Cake Pop = bake cake, crumble cake, mix in frosting, form into balls, dip. Whether it has a stick or not, this is the essence of a Cake Pop. I have an entire category dedicated to them. They are heaven. If you have never tried one, go to Starbucks and get the pink one.

Some people, however, do not like Cake Pops. (Crazy, right?!) They say they are too sweet, too rich, whatever. I use those phrases sometimes too, but not about Cake Pops! Others think the texture is weird. They’re gooey-ish, so it almost seems like they are uncooked. I hate lots of foods because of texture, so I can’t hate those people either. Anywhooo, I won’t judge. Because there is a solution to these Cake Pop hating individuals.

babycakes!!!

It bakes cake (and just cake) into balls, so that you can skip the whole crumble-cake, mix-in-frosting, form-into-balls part. You just bake the cake, then dip it! Another bonus, the little balls of cake take just 4-5 minutes to cook! Sorry for all the exclamation points, this is just a very exciting idea.. especially for all the Cake “Pop” haters.

So has anyone else caught on to the dilemma here?

What do you call these little balls of cake? Although the machine refers to them as Cake Pops, they are not the same thing and I refuse to refer to them with the same name. After much thought on the matter, I have decided to call them…..

Cake Balls.

Creative, I know. (For future reference, Cake Ball posts will be classified under “Cakes” and not “Cake Pops.”)

So here we go with my first Cake Ball run!

I went with a from scratch recipe for the first time, ~~but I am pretty sure box cake works with it too~~. I’ll let you know next time. (**update** boxed cake does not work!)

First batch was a little brown. Still tastes amazing though!

If you put too much batter in the holes, it makes a little edge where the sphere halves meet. Easily broken off though.

If you don’t put enough batter in the holes, the top half of the Cake Ball is not round. Like these…

Cake Balls ready for their coating!

These are lemon flavored, so instead of coating them in candy melts (like you would use for Cake Pops), I wanted to do more of a glaze. Think donut holes!

I used the same glaze I use on my cookies, but I added some lemon extract and lemon juice to make them just as lemony as the cake.

I dropped them in a bowl of glaze, covered them well with a spatula, then fished it out with a fork and tapped off as much as I could. I carefully set it on the wire rack (with wax paper underneath) and gave it some rainbow sprinkles. Sprinkles make everything 549463135487 times better.

Aren’t they pretty?!

See?! The inside isn’t gooey, just fluffy cake! Very good fluffy cake. A couple people said it reminded them of a donut, especially with the glaze coating.

**Disclaimer – All words above are my views only and I was not paid to talk about the babycakes product. It was a Christmas gift from my brother actually. 🙂 What a good brother I have!

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Tagged as cake balls, icing, lemon, lemon cake, sprinkles

June 17, 2011 · 1:14 pm

Raspberry Lemonade Cake

So I realized I am really bad at following directions in a recipe. On the bright side, it ends up more of an “adaptation” that way.

Last night I was planning on making a cake for my new cake stand. I had purchased all of the ingredients for both the cake and a jello mold I wanted to eventually try with a new jello mold my mom gave me (it’s old actually, just new to me). I was getting ready to start and I just thought “It’s a little silly to be baking when it’s so hott outside!” So then my husband suggests I make the jello mold instead. Sounded like a good idea, so I started making the jello. Then I realized I had bought fresh raspberries for the cake, and they weren’t going to last long. So I made both. Two new recipes in one evening? Not such a good idea…

The jello I’m not even going to talk about. Just know that I will try it again one of these says and it will make it onto this blog! It just doesn’t deserve it this time.

The cake. Mmmmm the cake. I was thinking the whole time that at least I didn’t mess up the cake like I did the jello! At least I can follow some directions.. HA. I got to the end and realized I made a big boo-boo, but it ended up tasting absolutely AMAZING and I will intentionally make the same “boo-boo” every time I make this cake! It was so good in fact, that a coworker ordered one from me for a party this weekend! So I baked the same cake (the same way!) both Tuesday and Thursday this week. I took more pictures the second time around, because the jello incident had me too frazzled to remember the first time around!

The original recipe is here. What follows is my “adaptation.”

Raspberry Lemonade Cake

Ingredients:

1 box Betty Crocker supermoist white cake mix

1 can frozen lemonade concentrate (thawed)

1 3oz box raspberry jello

1/3 cup vegetable oil

4 egg whites

fresh raspberries (about 2 cups)

1 16oz box powdered sugar

3 tbsp milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 stick butter (1/2 cup) (softened)

1 container frozen whipped topping (thawed) (I used fat-free)

1. Heat 1 cup of water over low heat. Wisk in packet of jello. Keep stirring until all the powder is dissolved. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly.

2. Preheat oven to 350, or 325 for dark/nonstick pans.

3. In large bowl, beat together cake mix, 1/4 cup water, 1/4 cup jello, 1/4 cup lemonade concentrate (shake the can before you open it!), the oil, and the egg whites on low speed for about 30 seconds. Scrape down sides on bowl and beat on medium speed for at least 2 minutes.

*Pause* Look how pretty the batter is! It reminds me of bubblegum!

4. Pour batter evenly into 2 cake pans. I used 9″. Tap them on the counter to even the batter out. Bake for about 25 minutes, cake is done when toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

5. As soon as you take the cakes out of the oven, poke the tops with a fork every inch or so. Each hole becomes a pocket of “wonderfullness” as the original receipe says!

6. Stir together the rest of the can of lemonade and the remaining jello juice. Carefully spoon over the cakes so that it seeps into all the little holes! Let cool completely (at least 1 hour).

*Pause* The first time around I couldn’t figure out why there was soo much liquid. Maybe because the original directions said 1/2 cup lemonade, half of which goes into the cake, so there is onyl 1/4 cup left to add to the jello and spoon over the top of the cake. Me not paying attention, used the whole can, which is like 5x more lemonade than you’re supposed to use. The result was a tart-sweet cake that was very very moist and amazing. I imagine the original recipe results in a sweet (rather than tart) taste and not so moist.

7. When cake is completely cool, remove the first from the pan by inverting onto a clean flat cutting board. Then invert again onto either a cake plate/platter or onto a cardboard cake base. Use a long bread knife to level off the top of the cake. Doesn’t have to be perfect, but it will help it be better balanced.

8. For the frosting, mix together powdered sugar, butter, milk, and vanilla until very smooth. I like to add white food coloring to brighten it up, but you don’t have to. Once it’s all smooth, carefully fold in the whipped topping.

9. Plop a hefty portion of frosting on top of the bottom cake and smooth to the edges. Invert the second cake onto the (clean) cutting board, then carefully invert again onto the top of the other cake. Because the cakes are now so moist, be really careful not to break or crumble the top cake!

*Pause* I was pretty much freaking out trying to flip a sopping wet cake over on top of another cake. I was soo scared it was going to fall apart! Especially for the second cake because it was for someone else!

10. Plop a bunch more frosting on the top of the cake and start spreading. Use a lot and never let the spreader touch the cake surface, that’s how you get crumbs in your frosting! Do the sides and top separately, never spread from side to top in one motion, or the other way around. It helps keep a clean shape.

*Pause* At this point, my house was pretty warm, and my frosting was melting off my cake as I frosted. I popped both the cake and bowl of frosting into the fridge for about 15 minutes, and it came together better and was much easier to work with. I recommend the AC being on if it’s a hot day and you’re frosting a cake!

11. Top the cake with fresh raspberries, or serve along side the cake when cutting.

The ones above are the Tuesday version, on my new cake pedestal. The top one is kind of a bad picture so you can’t tell, but the pedestal is clear purple. So pretty! I served the raspberries on the side the first time.

The picture below I topped with the raspberries so that it would look fancy for my “customer”!

I bought the cardboard base and cake box at Michaels, and taped one of my business cards on the corner.

First cake order is a success! Hopefully he can make it home the hour and a half safely…

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Filed under Cakes

Tagged as buttercream, jello, lemon cake, pink, raspberry, whipped cream

May 8, 2011 · 9:19 pm

Lemon Pudding Cake & Chocolate Strawberries

For Mother’s Day I wanted to make something amazing to take to my mother-in-law’s. I know they favor lemony desserts and so I offered to bring this cake that I already had on my “need to make this one of these days” list.

My aunt makes an amazing lemon cake that I have always liked. It starts from a box, and I know if has some pudding mix in it.. and then she pokes holes in the top and mixes powdered sugar and lemon juice and pours it over the top of the cake… I decided I wanted to try and make something similar, but maybe “fancier” looking, since hers doesn’t actually have frosting or anything on it.

I found this recipe while perusing different lemon recipes and I thought it sounded amazing… plus it is accompanied by a light frosting so I could “fancy” it up. I pretty much just followed the recipe with only a few minor changes. A few of the comments recommended using lemon cake rather than yellow, so I went with that. (I am of the opinion that it’s difficult to get desserts too lemony.) For the icing I used lemon juice rather than extract, cuz well, I don’t have extract.. and I used 2x as much. Also, I don’t have a 10×15 inch pan. (Seriously?! Who has a pan that big?) so I did half at a time using an 8×8 pan, and just slopped some of the icing in between.

I think the “beat for 4 minutes on high” part made the the batter uber smooth and the cake itself looked like velvet coming out of the oven. Also the comments said to definitely keep the cake in the fridge – the cool whipped icing is key for the refresh-ness of this cake!

Here is the final picture:

I left it pretty plain looking… and of course, here is the cut picture:

Served with fresh cut up strawberries of course. It paired perfectly! This cake was YUMmy! Super smooth and light and moist. I wished there was more of the icing. It is definitely better cold right out of the fridge. I think the strawberries were an essential part, I don’t think I would make it again unless I had the fresh strawberries for it.

For “fresh” strawberry definition, see this post!

Since we are lucky enough to have both families in town, we spend brunch/lunch with my in-laws and dinner with my family. I told my family I was bringing strawberries. I don’t know what they were expecting, but I brought these:

My grandma loved the strawberries (yes they are fresh!) so much I am making her some for her bunco group later this week. (The cups near the center are filled with chocolate drizzled walnuts.)

After brunch with the in-laws I had HALF of the lemon cake left over. So before heading to my family dinner, I stopped home and used the leftover frosting and frosted the cut side. It looked good as new, you couldn’t even tell that it was reused!

**Coming up next… I am making my own birthday cupcakes!