Lemon Raspberry Bundt Cake

(For those who want to skip straight to a copy of the recipe, just go here and use raspberries instead of lemons)

Cricket season has arrived in Edinburgh. What this means is that once a week I take my eldest over to our local grounds for practice. With the sun shining, the children all in their cricket whites, and just the sound of bats hitting their targets, I feel both excited and guilty about being part of it. The pitch is situated in one of the more affluent parts of town, overlooked by a grand mansion with multiple bay windows and a vast garden extending down a steep slope. The views from the pitch extend over to Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags and are magnificent in the evening light. Outside are parked family Mercs, Audis, and Range Rovers, and inside the walls lean custom made bicycles that have secure garage storage when at home. Meanwhile the clubhouse itself is just a glorified shed and the club members are prodominantly middle class folk who lean towards the upper end of the spectrum, many obviously eager to climb up, up, up to the top 1%. The club do not discriminate in their members; places are awarded on a first come, first serve basis, but not many working class folk are in the area. So yeah, it all feels just a tad elitist, just not as blatant as an invitation only country club.

I don't have a new coat, a fancy bike, or a flashy car to show off, so instead I bring culinary creations to prove my worth. You see, part of the charm of the place is a folding table set up at the side, quietly selling tea, coffee, juice, and homemade cakes. Parents nibble delicacies and sip tea on wooden benches as they watch their sons practice (yes, all boys, somehow no girls have expressed interest in joining our local club), then at the end a swarm of young men surround the table to clear it of every last crumb, thrusting their 50 pence pieces at whichever overwhelmed mother has been pulled into duty that week. I have carefully avoided the baking table's rota, telling myself if I just bring cake every week I will have fulfilled my duties as a cricket mother without having to endure excessive smalltalk.

But what to bring? Last week I delivered some chocolate chip cookies which disappeared quickly, but I discovered the other day that somehow I'd managed to hide 5 different bags of raspberries in my freezer.  This meant whatever I made this week would have to be dotted with these berries in order to clear out space for the two monstrous bags of Costco chicken nuggets I had more recently shoved inside (don't judge). Aiming for a show-off factor, I pulled down my fleur de lis bundt tin. All it takes is a lot of oiling (hello, cooking spray, where were you when I needed you this week) a lot of cooling, and some tupperware to transport it and BOOM, you've got yourself a fancy cake. It can taste like sawdust, but people will still ooh and aah when they see it.

I only grabbed my i-device once I'd put it in the tin, as I was in a wee bit of a rush, but I just loved the look of the batter so much I had to take a photo. Berries make things look pretty.

,

Then in it went. As the berries were still frozen, and I had limited time, I cranked up the heat 30 degrees higher (Celcius) than the recipe said and chanced my luck. After an hour, it looked like this, which was good because the last time I made it at the lower temp it took over an hour and a half to cook through.

A few hours cooling, then I turned it out onto some parchment paper. A couple parts had stuck, but not too disastrously.

Then a quick stirring of lemon juice and icing sugar for a runny glaze. "IT'S DRIPPING!!!" my three year old son warned me. I reassured him that I meant for it to happen that way, but he just eyed me with great skepticism.

For the record, this is what it looked last time I made it with the slower cooking time and temp...and a more runny glaze:

Off it went to cricket. My pride climbed to unhealthy heights when I saw it was the cake that all the adults chose to consume with their evening cuppa. I don't have a photo of the what it looks like when you slice into it, but it really is inviting: golden cake dotted with fresh red raspberries. My cake lady status was preserved.

The meticulously copied and pasted recipe is below

INGREDIENTS

SERVINGS 12UNITS US

• 1cup butter, softened
• 2cups sugar
• 3eggs
• 3tablespoons lemon juice, divided
• 1lemon, zested
• 2 1⁄2cups all-purpose flour, divided
• 1⁄2teaspoon baking soda
• 1⁄2teaspoon salt
• 8ounces plain Greek yogurt or 8 ounces vanilla, greek yogurt
• 12ounces raspberries
• 1cup powdered sugar

dIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 325*. Grease and flour a 10 inch Bundt pan. Sift together the 2 ¼ cups of flour, baking soda and salt. Mix in the lemon zest and set aside.
2. With an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in 1 Tb. lemon juice. Alternate beating in the flour mixture and the yogurt, mixing just until incorporated.
3. Toss the raspberries with the remaining ¼ cup of flour. Gently mix them into the batter.
4. Pour the batter into the Bundt pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
5. Allow to cool 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely. Once cooled whisk together the remaining 2 Tb. of lemon juice and the powdered sugar. Drizzle over the top of the cake.

Panettone in a Bundt

Ah, Lent, that joyous time of year when we willingly go without. My son has given up marshmallows, my husband has given up lunch, and I have given up all processed sugar. You can imagine how cheerful our household is these days.

Oh, and my daughter has given up eating raw tomatoes. Yup, she really knows how to make a sacrifice for Lent.

So it is with somewhat dampened enthusiasm that I find myself baking for work this week. We are having our own little bake off, and the category is "Continental Cakes". While at first I had thought of making a fraisier, I realised that this would be quite a bit of effort for a cake that wouldn't slice well and would need refrigeration. Instead I decided to make a more pannetone type affair, using a bundt tin to give it a pretty shape. Bundt tins are useful like that.

Now if you ask any Italian for their Panettone recipe, they'll laugh and direct you to the nearest reputable bakery. But in my Joy of Cooking, next to the recipe I use as the base dough for my hot cross buns, is a recipe for Panettone, which I followed loosely until the last step where I put it into a bundt tin rather than a tube tin.

I didn't get my camera out until I'd made the sponge starter. Here it is, in all its clingfilmed glory, sitting in the morning sun.

Er, yeah...moving on...

Then while that rose for a while I covered some sultanas with water, brought them to the boil, and drained them. This prevents them from being super dry and stops them from burning...mostly.

While Joy asked for separate additions of chopped candied citron peel and orange peel, all I had at my disposal was chopped mixed peel. So be it. Here you can see my weathered Joy peeking through.

In it went with the soaked sultanas...with the addition of a couple Tablespoons of rum.

And hour or so later, my sponge starter looked like this, al bubbly and happy.

So in a separate bowl I put an egg, some yolks (eek - egg separation anxiety!), sugar, vanilla, lemon zest, and clementine zest (I had no oranges).

And some plain flour...which was supposed to be bread flour but I didnae have any in my hoose. Oh, and the sponge starter went in too.

It was gloopy. This is supposed to be kneaded/mixed until smooth.

This was as smooth as I got it before I lost patience and threw in the butter.

Again, this was as smooth as I got it before I lost patience. More would be better and would result in an airier cake.

In went my fruit mixture after I'd drained off most of the booze.

And I mixed it until it looked like so.

I then put it in a buttered bowl. It's supposed to be a smooth ball, but oh well.

Here is one purchase I did manage to remember: cooking spray. These bundt pans are great for pretty cakes, but they are a real pain to grease before use.

Once the dough had risen, I punched it down (or rather, gave it a rough stir with a wooden spoon) then spooned it into the pan to rise

At this point I was running out of time. This was enough rising for me.

But you know what makes everything better?

Yes, that's right: BUTTER. Just a little bit over the top before it went in.

And then a little bit when it came out.

Pretty, ain't she? But not as tall as I'd hoped, so more decoration was required.

A simple glaze from icing sugar and lemon juice squirted out of a ziplock bag and a few sliced almonds later...

Er...um...how about more sugar?

That's better! Good enough for me to bring in. Although the official bake off is tomorrow, it looks as if turnout will be low. I thought it best that people dig in now while the cake is fresh, and simply report back as judges tomorrow. When I made this suggestion, it was happily received.

But how does it taste, you ask? 

I DON'T KNOW BECAUSE I CAN'T HAVE ANY SUGAR, YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD!

But here's the recipe which I am too lazy to type up: