Lemon Lime Mini Bundt Cakes With Lemon Lime Syrup

I have made many versions of this lemon cake, which uses a syrup right after baking to enhance the lemony taste of the cake and after much experimentation over the years, I have come to particularly like this version.

I went shopping with lemons in mind and to my delight, found that there was a plethora of limes in the market and I snapped some up to add a slightly different flavor to my cake. If you can only find lemons, no worries, it works beautifully as well.

I find that people, myself included, enjoy small cakes, not petit fours necessarily, but a dainty cake on a cake plate that is just right after a big meal.

I have a love affair going on with the Wilton company’s pans, since they are heavy duty, really non stick (with spray) and they have the most adorable designs. My more recent purchase was their mini bundt pan which has 12 little bundt cake molds, like a muffin tin.

For this recipe, I use a batter that is for a whole bundt cake, which gave me 24 mini bundts and 4 cupcakes. You can make the recipe as one whole bundt cake, but for special occasions, I find this adds an extra touch of WOW to your dessert. Either way, don’t be shocked if your guests lick their plates 😉 .

You start with grating the peel or zest of the limes and the lemon (or only limes or only lemons, depending what you can find) and none of the white pith which is bitter and set aside. Using a microplane makes it easier.

Next, slice them in half and juice them

You need in total 3/4 of a cup of lemon/lime juice. A small note. Nothing beats fresh juice since the bottled kind has a funny aftertaste. But, if after juicing all those lemons you need to top off the juice with a bit of bottled stuff, I won’t actually find you and hit you for it. Just this once. 😉

You need 1/4 cup of juice for the cake and 1/2 cup of juice for the syrup. Pour out 1/4 cup and add to one cup of soy or regular milk.

add the 1/4 cup lemon juice

And after letting it sit a bit, it curdles and thickens. This is not spoiled, this is what you want. Add the vanilla extract. Onward.

Next, pour the rest of the lemon juice over 1/2 cup of sugar and stir. Set aside for when the cake is baking, we will zap it in the microwave to melt the sugar. This pic shows the melted mixture, you see it’s a clear syrup.

lemon juice and sugar, melted together in microwave

Now to the body of the cake. We are beating together the sugar and the butter/margarine (no, you can’t substitute oil in this recipe or the consistency will not work well).

The marg should be soft enough to beat easily with the sugar. If it’s too hard, it will not get that smooth consistency you want so leave it out at least for an hour preferably longer, unless your kitchen is very warm, you will know.

Now, I’m gonna bombard you with pictures since I think people often add the ingredients to the mixture with too much haste and then don’t understand why the cake has weird pockets of bubbling or holes and other annoying things that go wrong. Since you have a mixer doing the work, or if you are doing this by hand, it’s very important that the butter/marg is soft enough to be properly incorporated. So, the pictures will show you the stages that the mixture should go through. It’s much faster than these pictures might make you think, but I want you to see exactly how it works.

Cube the marg (if very soft it won’t cube easily but that’s okay, you want to break it up and not leave it as a block) and add to the sugar.

Start to beat together on low.

Note the texture. This is what they mean by beat together until fluffy. If your marg/butter is soft this will take literally seconds. Next, add your eggs one at a time to the creamed mixture. I want to explain why you really shouldn’t dump them in at once. The creamed mixture will “break” and not be able to incorporate the eggs all at the same time. It will take an extra few minutes but will make a tremendous difference in the outcome of the cake. So, one egg:

See how it’s still thick but getting a bit looser. Scrape down middle and sides with spatula and keep going.

and scrape down and I’m on the fourth egg now and see the difference in texture without the mixture looking curdled.

look how smooth the consistency is. This is not difficult at all, it just requires allowing the eggs to be individually incorporated into the mixture. Then add the grated zest and whirl once to incorporate.

Then, stir your dry ingredients together in a bowl or I prefer a measuring cup with a spout since you are not going to put in liquids and flour alternating. This is a great trick – you have the mixer on low and you take your “curdled” milk in one hand and your dry mix in the other and gently shake/pour them in from either side of the mixing bowl at the same time, slowly just till all incorporated.

And your final mixture should look like this

Nice and thick with flecks of zest and not curdly looking.

Excellent. Take your whole bundt pan or your mini bundt pans and using baking spray such as Baker’s Joy (which it really is) which is a combo of flour and oil, coat the pans thoroughly. If you don’t have any, you must grease the pans and then flour them and pat out the excess. I love the baking spray since it saves so much time and really works. If you don’t grease and flour and just grease, the cakes will stick and won’t unmold properly.

After spraying the mini bundts, fill them only a drop more than halfway since if you overfill them, they will get a muffin top which you do not want. The whole beauty here is that you will invert them and the lovely bundt top is what will rule. If using a whole big bundt pan, fill with all the batter.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and bake you mini bundt cakes for about 20-22 minutes till a pale yellow with a brown ring around the edge.

brown ring around pale yellow bottom of cake

Don’t let the cakes get darker, this is the correct color or they will dry out. Let the minis cool for a couple of minutes and set up you baking tray with parchment paper lining it and a cooling rack. Take the mini bundt pan, lay the cooling rack on top of it (feet up) and flip carefully with mitts onto rack. Put this on the parchment lined pan. Take your glaze which you zapped in the microwave till sugar melted and using a brush (love my silicone one) dip into glaze and brush all over the tops and sides of the minis. You will see the liquid getting absorbed by the hot cakes. Remember, you have another 12 minis to go (plus) so you save half the syrup for the second batch. The parchment lined pan will catch whatever drips you have and makes cleanup a snap.

This syrup adds a punch of flavor so don’t skip it. If you make the whole cake, let it cool for about 10 minutes (you don’t want it to crack when you carefully invert it) and brush all the syrup all over top and sides. Let cool completely before serving.

These freeze beautifully and taste just as fresh as the day you made them, up to one month. They’ve never lasted longer so they may be good longer than that. The lemony sweet tartness of these cakes is always a crowd pleaser.

1 cup (225 grams) butter or margarine , at room temperature

2 cups sugar

4 large eggs

grated lemon and lime zest/peel from 3 lemons and limes – if you can’t find limes, lemons are fine

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

3/4 cup soy milk/milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the lemon syrup :

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour either one bundt pan or mini bundt pans, I love the baking spray which combines it- Baker’s Joy, it’s fabulous and your baked goods unmold beautifully.
Cream the butter/marg and 2 cups sugar in the bowl of a mixer with the paddle, until fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. With the mixer on medium speed, add the eggs, 1 at a time, waiting till each egg is separately incorporated (see pic above) scraping down the bowl so that there are no clumps of butter or margarine not fully beaten in. Add the lemon/lime zest.
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl or in a Pyrex or large measuring cup. In another bowl or measuring cup combine 1/4 cup lemon juice and the milk, let stand for a minute or two till it curdles a bit like buttermilk and then add vanilla. While your mixer is on low speed, pour both mixtures from either side of the bowl at the same time, shaking in the dry and pouring in the wet, afterwards scraping in all the liquid of wet ingredients stuck to the cup.
Divide the batter evenly between the mini bundt pans, filling them just a drop more than 1/2 way- not 3/4 or it will rise too high and since you want to turn them bundt side up it’s important. I got 24 minis and 4 cupcakes- bake minis for approximately 21 minutes and bake cupcakes 25-30, a full bundt cake needs 1 hour – 1 hour 15 minutes, check after an hour, until a toothpick or wooden skewer comes out clean. The cakes are kinda pale yellow with a light brown ring around the edge (see pic), so don’t judge by that, judge by doneness with toothpicks.
Combine 1/2 cup granulated sugar with 1/2 cup lemon juice in a small bowl, stir well and zap in microwave till the sugar dissolves.
When the mini bundt cakes are done, allow to cool for about 3-5 minutes. Take a cooling rack, put on top of pan (using mitts) and carefully flip so cakes sit correct side up on rack. Put on parchment lined baking pan and brush gently all over with syrup. You will see the hot cakes absorb the syrup.
For the big bundt pan, let the cake cool at least 10 minutes before turning out (same way as above, carefully onto rack. Then brush with hot syrup. Allow the cake(s) to cool completely.
These are fabulously lemony (or lime-y) and the tart-sweet flavor makes them irresistible!

Lemon Lime Mini Bundt Cakes With Lemon Lime Syrup – Step by Step