Citrus is in season and the trees – here in Southern California, at least – are bursting with oranges, lemons, grapefruits, limes and other sweet, tangy citrus. Not only do I squeeze oranges to make juice for breakfast, but I find myself making lemonade and lemon bars, generously squeezing limes onto homemade tacos and into all manner of baked goods. The zest from these fruits also makes a regular appearance in my recipes. This Citrus Lover’s Bundt Cake is a cake for anyone who also loves all kinds of citrus fruits because it uses orange, lemon and lime all in one delicious dessert.
Lemon, lime and orange juice are all incorporated into this cake, as well as the zest of all three fruits. They blend together and give the cake an overall citrus flavor, without one fruit dominating the rest. The result is a cake that is tasty and surprisingly complex. The cake has a moist, soft texture and a fluffy crumb, so it’s not too heavy and is a great snacking cake to keep around the kitchen – although it is elegant enough to serve at a brunch or dinner party, as well. The fancier your bundt pan is, the fancier your cake will be. I used my Heritage Bundt Pan for this particular cake.
Freshly squeezed fruit juice is the key to a great cake with this recipe. You’re going to get the most vibrant flavors in both the cake and the glaze with fresh lemons, limes and oranges. You can, in a pinch, use pre-squeezed juice, but try to get the freshest you can and get at least a few fruits for the zest, as that will really punch up the flavor in the cake. I used orange and lemon zest in the cake, where I wanted to make sure that their flavors stood out, but saved the zestier lime zest for the glaze, where it added a little extra brightness without dominating the other flavors. If you want to highlight one fruit over the others, use only that fruit’s juice in the glaze (just orange or lime, for instance), as that will add a nice overlay of that flavor to the whole cake.
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I usually recommend cake carriers as great places to store cakes of all kinds because they provide an airtight environment that will help keep your cake fresher and they make it easy to transport a cake. But we don’t always share our cakes and often bake them just for keeping around the kitchen, not just for taking out to dinner parties and family gatherings, and there are other options for keeping your cakes that are a little more aesthetically pleasing than an ordinary cake carrier. One of these options is Nordic Ware’s Bundt Cake Keeper. This cake keeper is designed especially for bundt cakes, with a design that mimics that of a classic bundt cake, including a depression on the top of the container that mirrors the hole in the center of the cake. It is lightweight and made of plastic, with a lid that locks into place to keep things airtight. It is not difficult to move around, although it doesn’t have convenient carrying handles, either. That said, it really flatters a bundt cake in a way that a regular cake carrier won’t, and it will fit up to a 10 1/2-inch cake with ease. It doesn’t collapse for storage, so you will need some extra room in the kitchen, but at least you cane use it for storing bundt pans themselves when neither are in use!
Since I first saw Nordicware’s Heritage Bundt Pan at a Williams-Sonoma store over two years ago, I’ve wanted one. I don’t have an extensive collection of bundt pans – although I wouldn’t mind it – just because they’re fairly large and I generally try to wait until I have a bit of extra storage space before adding a new one to my kitchen. I made a little room in my pantry, and went out to pick up my very own Heritage Bundt just a few weeks ago.
This pan is gorgeous, with deep ridges and a swirling design. It is made of heavy cast aluminum and has a nonstick interior. I wanted to whip up a Tiramisu Bundt Cake for a New Year’s party, so I made the batter and poured it straight into the pan – no greasing, no flouring – for a trial run. I usually grease and flour my bundt pans to ensure that the cake comes out cleanly, whether they’re nonstick or not. Nonstick coatings don’t last indefinitely, so this is a great safeguard for older pans, as well as a means to prevent chocolate chips, nuts or other mix-ins from sticking to the bundt pan and leaving gaps in your finished cake. I expected a brand new nonstick pan to give me no problems and it met my expectations. The cake easily slid out of the pan and was, to put it mildly, stunning to look at. The ridges looked just as good on the cake as they did on the pan. I originally planned to glaze the cake, but it was so pretty that I simply served it plain – to a very appreciative audience.
I’ll be getting a lot of use out of this pan in the future and am glad that I finally added it to the collection!
The only thing better than one bundt cake is two bundt cakes, mostly because the designs of those lovely round pans put out cakes that are as wonderful to look at as they are to eat. I’m probably not the only baker who has more than one bundt pan in the pantry, and the only problem is choosing which one to use for a given recipe. This problem must have been the inspiration behind the Duet Bundt Pan from NordicWare. This pan is two bundts in one, both with their own design. Each holds about three cups of batter, meaning that the whole pan holds roughly half of a standard bundt pan recipe. This is a great size because the resulting cakes are neither too small nor too large, and they’re the perfect size for giving away as gifts to friends, family and neighbors – or keeping one for yourself and giving the other away when you don’t have enough people to make it through a whole bundt cake! It also lets you play with flavors a bit, adding two different mix-ins to one batch of cake batter for two entirely different cakes.
The pan is made of heavy cast aluminum and has a nonstick interior. I would still lightly grease and flour the pan to ensure all of the edges come out cleanly, but that nonstick surface should give you a great release on those cakes and let you really see the designs clearly.
Pomegranates are packed with antioxidants, which means that there are a lot of potential health benefits packed into each fruit. Pomegranates are a bit difficult to eat, since each little seed – although tasty – doesn’t have a lot of juice or flesh surrounding it, so it takes quite a while to consume one. This is where pomegranate juice comes in, making it easy to enjoy the flavor of pomegranate without the work involved in eating a whole fruit. The juice can be used in many different types of dishes, and while I often see it reduced in a sauce, I used some to sweeten up a chocolate bundt cake.
This cake is moist, chocolaty and has a tender, but slightly dense, texture. It’s a great bundt cake because it’s easy to make and each slice is satisfying to eat. I used pomegranate juice as the primary liquid in this cake, where I might use milk, buttermilk or coffee in another chocolate cake. There is a lot of cocoa powder in here, so you can’t directly taste the pomegranate flavor in the cake. You can definitely tell the juice is there, however, because there is a lovely fruity sweetness to the cake that adds some complexity to the flavor. Not wanting to skimp on the chocolate, I incorporated some chocolate chips into this cake, too.
I used POM Wonderful pomegranate juice in this cake, because it is pure pomegranate juice and not simply flavored white grape juice. Definitely take the time to look for pure juice when you make this cake, both for that fruity flavor and for the antioxidants (don’t forget that there are also plenty in the cocoa powder in this cake!). It’s pretty easy to justify having a second piece when you can say you’re doing it for health reasons!
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