From Pumpkin to Lemon - Not a fail, but a try again.

I found this recipe before Thanksgiving and made it as one of our desserts.

The only change I made to the recipe was substituting a chocolate cake instead of a yellow cake. I also looked up a recipe online for pumpkin glaze icing. Poured it over the top of the Bundt cake and then shaved fresh nutmeg over the top of it. This cake was AMAZING!!

If you look at the first photo you will see that Pat who posted the recipe wrote, “It's so simple to make and oh so good the longer it sits the better it gets - Glad you enjoyed it :-))," and she is right. We ate this cake over 4-days and it was fresh, moist and yummy clear up to the last day.

Since we all loved it so much, I have decided to experiment today and take this basic recipe, but make lemon poppy seed pound cake.

I took the recipe:

1 box yellow cake mix
4 eggs
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 cup pumpkin
1/4 cup water
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

And took out the pumpkin, cinnamon and nutmeg; then I added lemon juice, poppy seeds, lemon zest and increased the water.

So the recipe now looks like this:

1 box yellow cake mix
4 eggs
¾ cups sugar
½ cup oil
1 TBSP lemon zest

2 TBSP fresh squeezed lemon zest

2 tsp poppy seeds (can reduce or eliminate)

½ cup water

The batter had a nice consistency and looked like the first cakes batter. I was super excited when I saw how it looked.

I baked it at 350 degrees for 45 minutes which is how long it takes to cook the pumpkin cake, but as you can see from the photo below it shouldn't have cooked that long.

In addition to it being very dark on the outside, it didn’t want to come out of the Bundt pan. L

I was going to make a Lemon Glaze to drizzle over the top, but since only ½ of the cake came out of the pan nicely I was not able to do that.

Glaze:

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

1 - 2 TBSPs of lemon juice

Instead I sliced it up to take and share at work.

Here is what I will change the next time I make the cake:

·         Reduce the lemon zest down to a ½ TBSP instead of a whole TBSP

·        

Cut the backing time back to 30 – 36 minutes.

So now you know that I am not a perfect cook or baker, but I am a “keep trying until you get it right cook and baker.”

J