Raspberry Lime Snack Cake

You guys have probably seen the blueberry version of this that went around a couple of weeks ago.  If you haven’t check out Monica’s. It nudged me into the kitchen.

With all the beautiful berries that can be found right now I definitely recommend trying this cake.   It’s very good, especially if you don’t bake it in a dark colored pan and forget to adjust the oven temperature 25 degrees.  I managed to “save” it by making a powdered sugar lime glaze.  :)

Raspberry Lime Cake, adapted from Southern Cakes

• 1  2/3 cups all purpose flour
• 1   1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar (reserve a TBSP) 
• 1 egg, room temp
• 1/3 cup milk, room temp
• 1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries (do not thaw)*
• the zest of 1 lime**

Heat the oven to 375F and generously grease a 9 inch square or round pan.  (I used a round 9” springform pan.)

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl and stir with a fork to mix well. In a medium bowl, rub the lime zest into the sugar. Then add in softened butter and beat with a mixer at high speed until well combined.  Add the egg and beat well for 1 to 2 minutes, stopping to scrape down the bowl, until the mixture is light and smooth.

Stir in half the flour mixture then half the milk, mixing just enough to keep the batter fairly smooth and well combined. Add the remaining flour, then the rest of the milk, mixing gently. Gently stir in the raspberries.***

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and spread into corners The batter will be thick.  I wet my fingertips and gently spread the batter towards the edges of the pan as best I could.  Sprinkle reserved sugar over the top and bake at 375F for 25 minutes or until the cake is golden, springs back when touched gently in the center, and is pulling away from the sides of the pan.

Serve a square of cake right from the pan, warm or at room temperature. If its round, let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack or folded kitchen towel for 10 minutes and then turn it out to cool, top side up.

*I used fresh raspberries and set them in the freezer on a sheet pan while I waited for the butter, egg, and milk to come to room temperature and prepped everything else. 

**Whenever zest is needed for a recipe I always rub it into the sugar and allow it to sit while everything comes to room temp.

***Next time I will try pressing the berries into the batter after I have spread it into the pan. 

Lemon Lime Goodness

Lemme get this out of the way.  If you’re opposed to using cakes mixes you should probably stop reading and click the red “x” in the top right hand corner, because this recipe uses a cake mix and boxed pudding but that’s okay because in the end it was all kinds of lemony lime good!  If you’re okay with shortcuts that take you straight to yum than by all means please continue on….

I saw this  lemon lime cake at my buddy Monica’s.  She was contacted by Duncan Hines to review one of their recipes.  Lucky for us she chose this beauty.

Instead of making one big bundt like Monica I decided to cut my baking time down. I made one 6 cup bundt, 2 mini bundts, and 2 mini loaves.  Sounds like a lot of cake, right?  Well, they were ALL gone by the next night. Guess we like them. :) I did make one major change to the recipe and that was to leave out the first glazing of the cake.  It’s not a glaze in the traditional sense as you’re supposed to poke holes in the warm cake and pour the "glaze” over the cake allowing the cake to suck in the glaze and cool.  Monica mentioned to me that she thought it almost made the cake too moist and suggested foregoing that glaze.  I followed her suggestion and still ended up with a moist cake though I did lose the sugary crust the glaze makes.  

Lemon Lime Cake adapted from Lick the Bowl Good      (For the complete printable recipe click here)

Cake:

• 1 pkg Duncan Hines® Moist Deluxe® Lemon Supreme Cake Mix
• 1 (3.4 oz) pkg lemon instant pudding
• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup lime juice

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 10-inch Bundt or tube pan.

For cake, combine cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, oil, 3/4 cup water and 1/4 cup lime juice in large bowl. Beat at low speed with electric mixer until moistened. Beat at medium speed 2 minutes.

Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool in pan 25 minutes. Remove cake from pan onto cooling rack.  Allow cake to come to room temperature before adding glaze.

 Lime Glaze by Monica

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• zest of 1 lime
• juice of 1 lime

In a small bowl, combine powdered sugar and zest. Squeeze lime juice into bowl a little at a time. Stir until there are no lumps and continue to add more lime juice until the glaze is thin enough to drizzle. Pour over cooled cake and allow to set.

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A little Baseball;  the Twins made their high school’s summer baseball team! Woohoo! Now I just have to figure out how to get them to all their games when I’m supposed to be working.  :)

Raspberry Lime Tea Cakes

If you’ll remember Monica and I have been baking our way through Martha Stewart’s Cupcake cookbook.  Our previous two cupcakes were a cookies and cream cheesecake and a black forest cupcake. 

This go round was Monica’s choice and I couldn’t have been happier when she chose the Strawberry Jam Tea Cakes.  I was worried she’d go for something chocolaty and I’d had my fill of chocolate with the black forest cupcakes.  The original recipe called for a strawberry filling and orange flavored glaze but I chose to go a different route.  One of the first blogs I started reading was Elle’s New England Kitchen. If you’ve read her blog a time or two you might have picked up on her love of raspberry and lime together.  Until these tea cakes I’ve had it lingering in the back of my mind.  I’m thrilled to say that raspberry and lime taste great together though I don’t think it beats my blackberry and lemon combo.

Notice anything about the above photo?  The raspberry preserves SUNK!  What the heck is going on?  Everything keeps sinking on me!  Monica said I should rename my blog, “my fruit sinks”!  :)

A lot of you have Martha’s cookbook so I’m not going to give you the recipe.  You can find it on page 117  if you’re interested in trying  it.  (My changes were to use raspberry preserves for the strawberry jam and to use lime zest and juice instead orange.) The recipe makes more than what it said it does.  I got 18 tea cakes and I overfilled my muffins tins.  So, if you’d like to make the recipe but not the whole thing here’s the link to the online recipe at Martha’s. The online recipe says it makes only 6 tea cakes but that has to be wrong as it’s half of the book’s recipe and the book says it makes 16 tea cakes.  I’m thinking the magic number is 10.  Another thing to be aware of is my tea cakes baked in less than 3o minutes. More like 20 though I only baked one pan at time.

If you wanna see some terrific photos of these tea cakes hop over to Monica’s, blog!  Not only will they be better but she usually has some interesting ones.

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