Little Lemon Cakes
Too many lemons is a first world problem, but there you are. We have a lemon tree in our yard, but so do lots of other Bay Area inhabitants. Free lemons aren’t always met with appreciation.
Searching for a productive way to use up my lemon glut, I turned to my cookbooks. In Nigella Lawson’s How to Be A Domestic Goddess I found Baby Bundts, which I have altered slightly–decreasing the sugar and adding as much lemon as I could cram in.
The recipe calls for yogurt, which I don’t always have. Clabbering milk or half-and-half with lemon juice is effective (and uses up more lemon). I once had only a quarter cup of yogurt, so I topped it up with half-and half and added lemon juice. It worked beautifully.
These little cakes may be baked in a baby bundt pan or a muffin tine. Whatever you use, be sure to oil, butter, or spray lavishly–these babies stick.
Fond as I am of my new KitchenAid, there’s no denying using it means some washing up afterward. Little lemon cakes ask only for a measuring cup and one large mixing bowl. And the result is a baked good that people used to call “wholesome:” fruit-based, low in sugar, and not all that terrible for you.
Little Lemon Cakes
From Nigella Lawson’s Baby Bundt Recipe in How To Be A Domestic Goddess
Yield:
12 muffin-sized cakes or 6 baby bundts
Prep time: about thirty minutes
Ingredients:
6 tablespoons/75grams sweet butter, melted
1 cup/474g all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch salt; use a 1/4 teaspoon if baking with clabbered milk instead of yogurt
1/2 cup/115 g yogurt, or use milk or half and half clabbered with lemon juice
2 large eggs
zest and juice of 2 large lemons/approximately 1/3 cup/75g (see notes)
butter, oil, or baking spray, for the pans
You will need either a 6-well mini-bundt pan or a 12-well muffin tin to bake little lemon cakes.
Preheat oven to 325F/160C
Lavishly butter, spray, or oil a 6-well mini-bundt pan or a 12-well standard muffin tin–do this even if your baking pan is nonstick.
Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Allow it to cool.
Mix the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl.
Zest the lemon before juicing it. I prefer zesting with a vegetable peeler, but use whatever tool you like best. Add the zest and lemon juice to the flour mixture.
Add the yogurt or clabbered dairy, eggs, and cooled butter. Stir to blend.
Dollop the batter into your greased baking pan. Bake about 25 minutes in the mini-bundt pan, 20 minutes in the muffin pan. A tester will come out clean.
Cool on racks about ten minutes, then remove cakes. Use a heatproof spatula if they want to stick.
Little lemon cakes keep at room temperature in a lidded container for three days; freeze up to two months.
Notes:
I am trying to use up a glut of lemons. If you are not suffering this first-world fate, the zest and juice of two large lemons is fine. Don’t fret about precise measurements.
Spray, butter, or oil your baking pan very lavishly, even if it’s nonstick. These cakes stick.
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