When life gives you another year, make lemon cake!

Another year, another birthday.  Time to make a lemon cake, as someone is very fond of lemon desserts (as opposed to something normal like chocolate).  Last year's birthday "cake" was a lemon pie, so it was time to come back around to a more traditional cake.  Getting older makes you more sophisticated.

Here's last year's pie:

So young and carefree at 30

Whereas this year is more classy and dignified:

Implicit is a frown, to represent the weight of old age

You will notice the use of the bundt. Bundt, bundt, bundt! It's pretty fun to say.  This was my first attempt at a bundt cake, and I think it turned out pretty well.

Bundts are kind of old-fashioned, but they make a nice presentation.  The original recipe is actually a pound cake from Barefoot Contessa, but instead I followed an adapted recipe from Smitten Kitchen that uses a bundt pan. Smitten Kitchen sounds like Smitten Kitten, which is also fun to say.

There once was a smitten kitten who stole a mitten; from where the jury was sitten, there was no acquittin'.

Here's a snap of the ingredients.  I am one of those people that doesn't read the recipe all the way through and prefers to "figure it out" as I go along.  Unfortunately for me, this whole "blog" thing has forced me to gather my ingredients ahead of time for the requisite snapshot.  Sooooo annoying, and yet, so much more convenient than my traditional methods.

When life gives you a recipe for lemon cake; buy lemons!
Several lemons were harmed in the making of this cake.

I did unfortunately discover at the outset that many of my ingredients needed to be at room temperature, and I therefore had to wait.  Confound you, preparedness! Luckily, I was able to spend all that time zesting and juicing the lemons, so it worked out in the end.

Here's a tip - cutting the butter into small pieces
helps it warm up faster

Getting 1/3 cup of lemon zest takes forever!
The zest must flow!

The juicer was quite handy because that's a ton of lemons.
I ended up with extra juice, so I froze it in an ice tray for
future use - Ec-O-Nomical!

Expertly greased and floured bundt pan.
(That sort of sounds dirty.)

Making the batter...not that interesting

Fresh out of the oven. 

At this point, it is time for Glaze #1 (lemon juice + granulated sugar) heated in a saucepan until the sugar is absorbed).  Getting the glaze to absorb was a little tricky, so I used a basting brush. The glaze soaks into the cake a little bit to give it some extra tartness.

After the cake is cooled, it's time for Glaze #2 (lemon juice + powdered sugar).  Let it drip over the warm cake and down the sides into an elegant, gooey mess.  Thats right.... elegant AND gooey.

The cake comes out light and airy, which is completely opposite of what I would expect from a pound cake recipe.  The icing is tart yet sweet, which matches perfectly with the subtlety of the cake.  Another successful lemon recipe to add to the ol' collection!

And it 'twas a Happy Birthday indeed!