Mini Lemon Drizzle Poppy Seed Bundt Cakes

About The Silicone Bundt Cases

First time I tried these silicone mini bundt cases, was in 2019, when I was entering a baking competition & I used for lemon drizzle poppy seed cake. I had bought them from Aldi (and were about £2.50/$3.50 for a pack of 12). Now I am not a great lover of silicone bakeware, as I on occasions, found it didn’t hold it’s shape particularly well.

However, I had successfully used ‘tea-cup’ style silicone cupcake cases from Lidl, to make Gluten Free Blueberry Muffins. So was worth having a try again. But I now have a top tip for you:

Tip For Using Silicone Cases

For silicone mini bundts or even silicone cupcake/muffin cases, to keep their shape on baking, place the cases inside a cupcake tray when baking.

My Classic Lemon Drizzle Poppy Seed Bundt Recipe

So for the first recipe to test these cases out, I chose my very popular Lemon Drizzle & Poppy Seed Cake. See my photo below of the cake baked in a pretty bundt tin. So after a little modification, I used my trusty recipe to make 12 mini bundt cupcake size cakes. Easier for sharing out, but still the same great taste, pop of seeds, and zing from the lemon! A VERY lemony cake indeed 🙂 You can of course omit the poppy seeds, but if you can source them, they really take the cake to an even higher level, adding an extra and unexpected texture.

Why it’s A Popular Lemon Drizzle Recipe

The recipe is also popular due to it’s simple process. It’s an almost ‘All-in-one’ method of preparing the cake batter. I am still a great believer in ‘creaming’ the butter and sugar together because it incorporates a lot of air into the batter. Which, in turn, produces a better rise in your cake and a lighter texture too. But I am not a lover of washing dishes either. So no need to dirty lots of dishes, unless you are taking pics of the ingredients – like me 🙂

Why Use A Digital Scale?

But another great way to minimise the number of dishes you use, is to use a digital scale. You can set it back to zero (TARE) to add in the next ingredient, to the same bowl. Many come with not only gram units, but also ml, ounces and pounds too. And if you need any more convincing, they are very accurate, compared to cup measuring that can vary significantly.

Ingredient Conversions Table

And if you want to convert your go-to recipes that are in cup measurements, check out my Conversion Table Of Common Baking Ingredients. Note that the results on Google can vary, so I personally hand measured, all ingredients within my table.

A NOTE ON THE INGREDIENTS

Flour

This leads me on nicely to ingredients. The first time using these cases, I actually used Wholemeal Self-raising flour. I am pleased to report back, that nobody knew anything was different, as the lemon zing still rang through! But this type of flour isn’t easy to come by. So I usually use white self-raising, but I have also tested with plain/All Purpose flour, and a little baking powder. Note that I tend to use less than the ratios you will find on Google, as I don’t like using too much and the cake sinking after rising, as well as the bitter metallic taste it can give.

Ground Almonds

There’s also ground almonds, well a small proportion in the cake. Ground Almonds is not exactly the same as Almond flour. See photo here of my ground almonds, which is nearer to a Fine Almond Meal.

Can You Use Almond Flour?

On the most part, the almond flour will not give 100% the same desired effect that the ground almonds provides. Ground almonds are used to give structure and some moisture to the bake. It often appears in my cakes that might be extra tall or need to be strong to support lots of fondant toppers for example. You can use almond flour if you have it, but make it is not too fine or powdery a texture.

I also have another article for your reference – Difference Between UK & US Common Baking Ingredients, that lists a lot of questions you might have.

Make Your Own Ground Almonds

You can also choose to grind your own almonds (skin on), and you basically bash them first and then process a little. There’s YouTube videos on this.

Caster Sugar

Lastly with the ingredients, is Caster Sugar. If you are in the US/Canada and can’t get extra/super fine sugar for the UK caster sugar, you can make your own by grinding regular granulated sugar a little bit or processing them lightly.  Do not go as fine as a powder, keep it as small granules.   Note that US granulated sugar granule size is slightly smaller than the UK equivalent.  

See the photo above for UK sugars. UK Icing/powdered sugar (Left), Caster Sugar (middle) & UK Granulated (Right). But for making the drizzle you can use either caster (extra/super fine) or granulated since it’s going to be cooked down.

DOWNLOAD the complete recipe with pics, to save to your phone or computer, by simply clicking the ‘download’ button below.

All that remains is for you to read on about the recipe and how I got on with the cases. So without further ado, let’s get baking 🙂

1. Weigh out the butter, while cubing it & leave out on the worktop/counter to soften & come to room temperature. I like to cut into rough squares, about 1 1/4cm (1/2″) size as smaller surface area comes to room temperature quicker. See Photo 1. But if you forget or are short on time, try this hack I reviewed, for Softening Butter In About 12 Minutes.

2. Once the butter is softened, (watch this video for how to tell if butter is soft enough), add to your mixing bowl and then weigh or add in the sugar.  Mix this for a couple of minutes until thoroughly combined and now paler in colour, thick and creamy. This is known as ‘creaming’ the butter and sugar together and causes friction, that creates air pockets, that incorporate air into our batter, and produce a lighter and less dense cake. See Photo 1.

3. Place your bowl over the scales (if using), with a sieve on top and set the scales to zero (TARE).   Now weigh in the flour and the baking powder through the sieve (you can give it a little mix there before pushing through if you like). Finally add the almonds/meal without the sieve.  See Photo 2, top left pic.

4. Now add in the eggs and mix together, just until all combined. Over-mixing can deflate the batter and produce a dense cake.  It will be a very thick cake batter.   But you can also add in about 3 tbsp of hot water at this point to slacken it a little. See Photo 2, bottom left pic.

 5. Finally add in the lemon zest and poppy seeds and give it all a good fold through with a spoon or better still a silicone spatula, till evenly distributed. If you want, you can also either hold back a little zest, or zest another lemon, and use this as decoration on the baked cakes, that gives a visual clue of the cakes ingredient. See Photo 2.

6. Heat up the oven to 180/160c fan oven/350f/Gas Mark 4. If your oven takes longer than 10 -15 minutes to come to temperature, switch it on sooner.

7. Oil or grease the mini bundt cake cases well (with spray oil, cake release spray or melted butter). I find just spraying well works, but you can go over it with a small pastry brush to get it completely coated in all awkward areas.  I use Fry Light One Cal spray, in either Butter or Rape Seed Oil and both work great and are not as expensive. See Photo 3.

8. Place the cases into a cupcake baking tray/sheet and they will hold their shape nicely.

9. Now using a tbsp or a ice-cream scoop, fill the batter into the cases to about at least three quarters full. Depending on the exact sizing of your cases, you may have extra left over that you can bake in other cupcake cases. Using your spoon, try to flatten the batter down as best as possible. Then give the cupcake tray a few bangs on the counter/worktop to expel any trapped air. See Photo 4.

10. Next place in the oven and bake until golden on top. This can take between 13 – 18 minutes. You can test the cakes are done by inserting a cocktail stick/toothpick into the centre of the largest cake. If the stick comes out clean with no crumbs, then the cake is fully cooked. If not done, cook for 1 more minute and check again till done. See Photo 4.

MAKING THE LEMON DRIZZLE SYRUP

12. While the cupcakes are cooking (or after), make the lemon drizzle syrup. Start by placing the lemon juice and caster or granulated sugar into a small pan and heat it gently on low-medium until it comes to a boil.  Mix occasinally at the beginning while the sugar melts. 

Let it boil for 5 – 10 minutes, or until the mixture is thickening and syrup like. Test it by using a wooden spoon, and lifting up from the syrup and seeing if it ‘coats the back of the spoon’. If it’s thickening it will stick to the spoon mostly, and you can run the end of a spoon or something similar along the back of the spoon(using your finger isn’t advisable as it will be boiling hot). And if a clear line is made when pulling across the spoon, through the syrup, this too indicates it’s ready. See Photo 5.

Remove from the heat and leave to cool down.  Note too, it will thicken more when left to sit. But don’t make too far ahead, or it will be too thick and not as easy to divide between the 12 cakes, as well as harder to soak into the cake. See Photo 6 below

13. Once the cakes are baked, leave in the baking tray to cool a few minutes.

14. Using a cocktail stick, poke lots of holes all over the tops of the cupcakes.  Try to go about half way down. **Remember to keep the cakes in the cases. I like to mark a ring of holes on the outer edges and then a few in the centre. See Photo 6, left pic.

15. Now drizzle over each of the cakes, the lemon syrup with a spoon, making sure to go over the holes you made. See Photo 6.  Rub the cake with the back of the spoon to encourage it to evenly absorb into the holes. Repeat with any left over syrup you might have. Leave to soak while you make the icing.

The key here is tiny amounts. I will start with tsp additions of liquid, and then work down to 1/4 or 1/8tsp size at a time. See video above, where I add enough and keep pushing down on the sugar with the back of a spoon, to make the sugar take on the liquid. Keep at it, as you will be amazed how much liquid the sugar takes on.

This will go through stages, from being like a extra thick chunky paste, then a thinner paste, and finally a smooth but not too watery glaze. See Photo 8.

Also see my video for the consistency you are looking for.. If it becomes too runny, just sieve in a little more icing at a time until just right.  If you run out of juice, you can add water instead. See video above for reference.

17. Remove the cases from the tin and then carefully remove the case from the cakes. What I do, is squeeze the top area of the bundt case, very gently and then let them fall out. You can also instead of letting them fall out, peel back the silicone casing. See my video on these being removed easily. So the Fry Light One Cal Spray is really good for this job, as they come out 99.9% clean of cake crumbs. See video above for a few ways to remove them. Note that with the drizzle, and cooling these just slip off. When no drizzle, I find the squeezing method works best.

18. Leave them to cool before decorating, by placing right way up on a cooling rack.

**TOP TIP – Also note that if you over-filled the cases, turning them the ‘right’ way up to cool, often makes the bottom ‘flatter’ with no need to trim off any excess.

DECORATING THE CAKES

19. These cakes are tasty eaten once cooled, but adding a little zesty icing/glaze, gives even more lemon taste.

20. You can drizzle the icing/glaze over the top of the cakes (while still on the cooling rack, place some baking/parchment paper underneath to catch any mess). Or you can very carefully, spoon tiny drops down the ridges of the bundt cakes (doing this a little higher up will achieve a thinner drip). But last time, for these pics here, I placed the small amount of icing/glaze into a small plastic food baggie and snipped off a tiny tiny hole. (probably a #1 size nozzle).

Then I decided to pipe a thin ring around the top of the bundt, and used a tooth pick to drag the icing/glaze down the ridges of the cake. At the beginning I got a few good ones, where it fell down the ridges a little. But as it sets up a bit more, it get’s thicker and ended up with a slightly different method, of scoring marks at the ridges, rather than gently guiding it down.

Either way, it looks nice so suitable if giving as gifts. If you have any glaze left, fill the holes of the bundts with this to give another nice touch. Finally finish off with some left over (or extra) lemon zest on top of the cakes if wished. (Or add some Spring Themed fondant toppers – see tutorial coming soon).

21. Eat, drink, enjoy! Store any left overs for a few days, in an airtight container or tin, with the cakes placed on top of some baking/parchment paper, as the bottoms will be sticky from the drizzle.

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