You Put the Lemon in the Coconut

I made another bundt cake.

I'm sorry, ok?

I know this blog now has 2 bundt cake experiments and not a SINGLE regular cake, or pie, or brownie, or numerous other things, but bundts are so dang simple! And I like my red bundt cake pan. It makes me happy. And isn't that what this is all about?

I wanted to make a bundt cake so badly that I even used 2 ingredients that I don't tend to like: coconut and lemon.

My reason for disliking coconut? Not sure. I love Pina Coladas and Mounds Bars, but that's the extent. The texture of coconut in most other settings gives me the willies.

My reason for disliking lemons? Well, this all goes back to my first year post college. During this year, there were many new experiences for me in the kitchen. I started slowly and bought a Rachael Ray book and was having moderately good results. Then I tried a recipe for stuffed tomatoes. The recipe looked good, but it required a HUGE amount of lemon zest. I didn't have a zester at the time, so I ended up using a knife to get the zest. The end result was a disgustingly lemony filling that was almost impossible to chew because of the large chunks of zest. I vowed then and there never to order anything with lemon in the title and never even DREAM of cooking with it.

I broke my vow this past weekend. I did it all for the bundt.

This was a relatively simple recipe, but I did mess up a few key parts.
-I didn't have granulated sugar, but only raw sugar cane. Not sure if that matters, but I only used a cup since...
-I couldn't find unsweetened coconut at my grocery store, so I bought sweetened.
-There were no 14 oz. cans of coconut milk, only 13.5. I used that.
-I was WAY nervous about the lemon zest (see above), so I think I only used about 1 tablespoon rather than 3.
-I used the baking powder that had mysteriously ended up in the fridge. I hope that you can still cook with that stuff after it's been used to absorb a stench...that's even gross for me to read.

All in all, this turned out ok. Not my favorite of flavors, but that was to be expected. Nothing really can compare to my last bundt endeavor.

Here's the recipe for Coconut Lemon Bundt Cake from Veganomicon.

Ingredients:

1-1/2 C granulated sugar
2/3 C canola oil
1 (14-oz) can coconut milk
1/4 C soy milk
1/4 C lemon juice
3 Tbs lemon zest
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 C flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1-1/2 C shredded unsweetened coconut
A few tablespoons confectioners’ sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease an 8 or 10″ Bundt pan. In a large mixing bowl, combine the granulated sugar, oil, coconut milk, soy milk, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla. Stir to combine.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into the wet ingredients in batches, mixing well after each addition. Stir to combine.

Pour batter into the Bundt pan. Bake 1 hour or until a knife inserted through the cake comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and let cool for about 10 minutes, then place a cutting board over the cake pan, gently flip over and release the cake from the pan. Let cool completely. Once cooled, sift a sprinkling of the confectioners’ sugar over the top.