When you think of lemon what comes to your mind? For me, it’s the sweet tart taste that is the harbinger of summer – of the light well into the evening. It’s the sweetness of time spent outside in the garden nurturing all my babies, on the patio playing backgammon, and feeling the warm sand of the beach underneath my feet and between my toes. And, the tartness that comes right along with it, like the pale, armor-clad bugs that attack my squash babies, and having to share the beach with tourists.

Now, on to the test kitchen recipe,  Gluten Free Lemon Bundt Cake from Fearless Dining.

Ingredients:

• Almond flour
• Gluten free flour blend
• Baking powder
• Sugar
• Vanilla
• Light coconut milk
• Eggs
• Oil
• Lemon juice
• Powdered sugar

I was looking forward to making this recipe because of the challenge of baking with gluten free flour, the ultimate question of release from the bundt pan, and the decoration test – definitely not one of my strong skills.

How many of you have had an issue with the bundt pan release? It’s nothing to be ashamed of, really. Here’s a little tip so it doesn’t happen to you again.

I learned this tip from mom. Make sure you get your pan well oiled, especially in all those little nooks. And, then, right before the cake is ready to come out of the oven, wet a tea towel or dish towel in cold water and place in your sink. Take the cake out of the oven and place it bundt side down, of course, on the wet towel in the sink – it will sizzle. Leave it like this for about seven-ten minutes. Then move the cake to a cooling rack for about five more minutes (bundt side still on the bottom). Then, release the cake from the pan by simply flipping it over one to another cooling rack. To do this you will have a cooling rack on the bundt side of the pan and one on the cake side. You will invert the bundt side and pull the pan away. There should be no sticking. Let cake cool completely before icing. I hope this helps you.

When preparing this recipe, I used Pillsbury Gluten Free Flour. This was my first time trying it. Have any of you tried it? The flour blend included the xantham gum so I did not need to add it to the mix. I followed the directions. But, I had some questions. My batter was thick and I wasn’t sure this was the correct consistency. I tasted the batter and thought it could use more lemon. But, I did not add additional lemon or anything to thin out the batter. And then, into the well oiled pan it went.

The cake had a nice pleasant aroma while cooking. More almond than lemon. In my oven, the cake took 45 minutes to cook. My oven is two years old. I used mom’s cooling tip and the cake slid right out of the pan.

When the cake was properly cooled, I said a little prayer the the cake decorating goddess and then mixed up the icing according to the directions. This made over a cup of icing. I drizzled the icing, to the best of my ability, but I only used about a 1/2 cup of the icing.

Here are the results: B.

A for ingredient availability. I had all the ingredients in my pantry and all the ingredients are easily found in local grocery stores.

B for cost of the ingredients. The only reason this recipe did not receive it did not receive an A in this category was because of the cost associated with the almond flour. It ran anywhere for $8-$10 for 1 lb. The Pillsbury Flour blend was reasonable at $6 for 2 lbs.

B for directions. The directions were very direct, clear and concise, however I did have questions about the batter consistency and the taste, as mentioned above.

B for taste. There were six taste testers. Overall the testers agreed that the cake could have used more of a lemon flavor and that the cake was heavy and a little dry. Here are the comments:

“If I didn’t know that this was supposed to be a lemon flavored cake, I would have thought it was an almond flavored cake.”

“Needs more moisture, more lemon flavor and maybe some lemon zest.”

” I could not really taste the lemon flavor over the nut flavor…but still very tasty.”

“Add more lemon to the icing or an accompanying lemon curd.”

“The cake is a bit dense, but not in a bad way.”

“Nice golden color.”

Be on the look out for our next test kitchen recipe.

Please make sure that all of your ingredients are gluten free. Just because ingredients are listed  does not insinuate that they are gluten free. Please make sure you choose the appropriate ingredients for your audience of tasters. Kroger has a wonderful list on their website (71 pages) of all the gluten free items in their stores.