Thyme to Experiment: Royal Bundt Cake

You may or may not have heard of a little wedding ceremony that took place last Friday, April 29th? A handsome prince married a beautiful commoner? Lots of fancy hats? And while I'm something of an anglophile, I wasn't about to give up a couple extra hours of sleep to watch the royal wedding. Luckily my place of employment was happy to indulge me, and at a more reasonable hour.

So the more pressing matter became, what to bake? I wanted something light, springy, and fit for a royal wedding. I also had 3 big lemons I wanted to use up, and so I settled on some sort of lemon cake.

One of the herbs growing voraciously in my container garden is thyme, and after checking with the internet to make sure my lemon/thyme paring wasn't totally ridiculous, I decided it was perfectly British (don't ask me why).  With those things set the next thing to figure out was where to put the thyme, in the cake, in the glaze or in both?! (You can see, I spend a lot of time thinking about things before even getting into the kitchen!) When I posed the question to my favorite gentlemen cake tester he told me it was thyme to experiment (adorable) although I spent more time experimenting with lighting and presentation in mini photo-shoots than I did with the actual recipe.


You see, I love the light, moist texture of the vanilla cake in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, so I usually stick with that as my base making a few substitutions for personal tastes, and experiment with extracts and mix-ins.  Things get a little tricky when it comes to total flavor overhauls or my favorite pastime -- baking with alcohol. But this was relatively easy. And so without further ado, I present:

Lemon Thyme Bundt (fit for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge)

For the Cake:
2 c. almond milk
2 tsp. clear vinegar
2/3 c. vegetable oil
1 1/2 c. granulated sugar
3 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp. lemon extract
1-2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 heaping tbsp. fresh thyme leaves, roughly chopped
zest of one lemon

2 1/2 c. flour
4 tbsp. corn starch
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 - 1 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350, and butter or spray your bundt pan. Combine the almond milk and the vinegar, and allow to sit about 2-3 minutes so it can curdle. Pour the curdled milk mixture into a big bowl and add all the other wet ingredients, oil through lemon juice. With a whisk or a hand mixer, beat until combined and foamy. 

Add all the dry ingredients to your wet mixture and stir, carefully at first, and then more vigorously until everything is combined and the batter is relatively lump-free (a bunch of little lumps are okay).

Stir in your thyme and lemon zest, and then pour the batter into your bundt pan. Bake for 35 minutes before checking on your cake. Depending on your oven, you may need another 5-10 minutes. Once you insert a butter knife and it comes out clean, remove from oven and cool on a rack for 10-15 minutes before removing from the pan.  While the cake cools, make the glaze.

For the Glaze:
1 c. confectioners sugar
fresh lemon juice from 2 lemons (about 1/4 c.)
zest of 2 lemons
2 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
1 tsp. earth balance butter

Whisk all the ingredients except for the earth balance together. Once everything is blended, add the butter and pop the whole bowl into the microwave for 30 seconds, so that the butter gets melty. This will help the glaze solidify a bit once it cools.  Let the glaze get to room temperature before spooning over your cake.

Put on your Sunday hat, fancy fascinator or ascot and pour yourself a cup of tea before slicing. Enjoy!

Brave new blog

I love to make things in the kitchen. When I'm not in the kitchen, I'm thinking about baking, cooking, researching recipes, learning kitchen science, and planning dinner parties in my head (don't tell my boss).  And now I have a blog.  Let's jump right in, shall we?

I started off baking cupcakes because they're awesome: regular cupcakes are the perfect individual serving, mini-cupcakes are calorie-less (its true!), all cupcakes are cute.  But creating cupcakes that elicit an ego-boosting reaction are a lot of work. And since I'm currently a full-time pencil pusher, sometimes the last thing I want to do once I get home is wait for a batch of cupcakes to cool completely before playing around with icings and finishing decorations.  And then there's the cleanup. That's the stuff that weekends (or much shorter commutes) are made of.

So recently I've (re)discovered bundt cakes.  They're quick, (usually one bowl and you're done) and fulfill a sweet craving with just as well as a cupcake.  But they're not always easy.  As with any cake, you want the end result to be moist and flavorful.  I've got that last part down, but what I can't yet seem to get perfectly is the moistness. Last week I baked a dark chocolate bundt cake with chocolate chips and rum-soaked cherries. The resulting cake was delicious! And so moist that the cake fell apart once removed from the pan. (That didn't mean it wasn't completely devoured in a few short days).  Yesterday I attempted a replication that would make it out of the bundt pan in one piece and retain it's moistness and delicate crumb. FAIL! For various reasons (probably relating the type of pan I used...matters for another post) the top and bottom of my bundt were kind of tough and chewy, while the center was as rich and moist as it should be.

I could have thrown it out, choked it down, or pawned it off on my roommates or colleagues.  But I wanted to fix it! And so, I glazed.  I whipped up a quick chocolate glaze with what I found laying around in my baking cupboard, drizzled it on top of the cake and let it pool at the bottom.  That was 3 hours ago, and now my once tough cake top has become soft, sticky and oh-so moist! I decided not to post a photo, as it's an ugly piece of cake (weeknight, remember). But now it's something I'm proud to serve, rather than pawn off!


Empty cupboard chocolate glaze:
I scavenged my cupboard for this glaze once I got home from work, and I didn't find much.  I also didn't measure everything out (I'm a big proponent of the "little of this, little of that" style of cooking), so I'm guessing after the fact!

1.3 oz dark chocolate
1-1.5 TBSP Earth Balance shortening (I didn't have butter; if you do, use it!)
2 or 3 TBSP confectioners sugar
2ish TBSP soymilk

Over medium-low heat, melt the chocolate and shortening, whisking constantly once melted. Add a tablespoon of the soymilk, (keep whisking!) and take off heat. Add confectioners sugar, the remaining soymilk and whisk to combine.  Put back on the stove, on low heat, and whisk until everything is combined and very few small clumps, if any.  Turn off stove and let the glaze cool for 5-10 minutes before drizzling onto the cake! FYI, this is also delicious drizzled over strawberries.