Sometimes you just need a little cake in your life, that’s were cake mixes come in handy. A few extra ingredients can help turn a traditional cake mix into something truly extraordinary. For this Bundt cake, a store-bought lemon cake mix is jazzed up with the addition of butter, milk, eggs, and poppy seeds. It doesn’t get much easier or any more delicious.
Many of y’all will remember that I used to take part in a monthly event in which the participants baked an original Bundt cake recipe based on a pre-determined theme. It got old. Not because I hate Bundts though. Mainly because I got tired of baking a Bundt cake every single damn month. I felt like other traditional cake, cupcake, cookie, and muffin recipes were being put on the back burner and the Bundts were getting all of the attention. Not cool. Variety is the spice of life and all of that.
Also, to be quite honest, I got a bit tired of some of the Bundt Nazis involved with the group. I’m not here to point fingers or anything. I’m just simply stating that some people in this world might want to spend more time worrying about things other than whether or not a Bundt cake is really a Bundt cake if it doesn’t have a hole poked in the center of it, or it is cooked in an angel food cake pan instead of a traditional Bundt cake pan. It’s just a freaking cake people. Get over it.
So anyway, after over a year of not participating in the group, I recently decided that perhaps it was time for me to dip my toes back into the water. Bad decision y’all, bad decision. The theme for this month’s event was “5-Ingredient Bundts.” Uggghhh. But heh, with a cake mix anything is possible, right? Wrong. A cake mix counts as one ingredient. Then, you need to add eggs, some sort of liquid, and some sort of oil. That’s four ingredients already, leaving only one more left to work with.
Then, I noticed a stipulation in the event information that insisted that cake mixes were not allowed. Well, f… that. Yes, you heard me right. There was no freaking way in hell that I was going to make a cake with just flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and a rising agent. Ain’t nobody in this world that wants to eat that bland ass cake. So you know what? I decided to go ahead and make my cake, just not for their event. Screw their rules, because rules totally suck. And to prove it, I threw in an extra ingredient. Take that, Bundt Nazis.
Ingredients:
Cake:
- 1 (15.25-oz.) Lemon Cake Mix
- 2 Tablespoons Poppy Seeds
- 1 Cup Whole Milk
- 3 Eggs
- 1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter, Melted (Additional Non-Melted Butter for Greasing Bundt Pan)
Glaze:
- 1 Cup Powdered Sugar
- 1 Lemon
- Poppy Seeds
Directions:
Cake:
- Preheat oven to 325 or 350 degrees. If you are using a dark-colored Bundt pan, to 325 degrees. If you are using a light-colored Bundt pan, to 350 degrees.
- Liberally grease a Bundt pan with unsalted butter; set aside.
- Mix all of the cake ingredients in a large mixing bowl, on medium speed, for 2 minutes.
- Pour the cake batter into the prepared Bundt pan.
- Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick or knife comes out clean.
- Allow the cake to rest for 15 minutes, before inverting it onto a cake plate or platter and allowing it to cool completely.
Glaze:
- Place the powdered sugar in a medium-sized bowl.
- Zest and juice the lemon.
- Add the lemon juice to the powdered sugar 1-tablespoon at a time, stirring between each tablespoon, until you get a smooth glaze consistency.
- Glaze the cooled Bundt cake and then garnish with lemon zest and poppy seeds.
Suggestions:
- The butter in this cake gives it a lovely flavor, however, you can replace it with canola or vegetable oil if you choose.
- The color and material of your Bundt pan will determine how long you will need to bake your cake. Dark-colored pans require less baking time.
- I used about 3-tablespoons of lemon juice in my cake glaze. I suggest using a bit less. It will help keep the glaze from running off of the cake.
Improvements:
- For an even more decadent cake, replace the milk in this recipe with half and half or heavy whipping cream.
- Replace the lemon juice and zest in this recipe with orange juice and zest and add additional orange zest to the cake batter.
- Add 1-teaspoon of vanilla to the cake batter.
- CLICK HERE to check out all of our past Bundt Cakes.
Ingredients:
- 1 (15.25-oz.) Lemon Cake Mix
- 2 Tablespoons Poppy Seeds
- 1 Cup Whole Milk
- 3 Eggs
- 1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter, Melted (Additional Non-Melted Butter for Greasing Bundt Pan)
- 1 Cup Powdered Sugar
- 1 Lemon
- Poppy Seeds
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 325 or 350 degrees. If you are using a dark-colored Bundt pan, to 325 degrees. If you are using a light-colored Bundt pan, to 350 degrees.
- Liberally grease a Bundt pan with unsalted butter; set aside.
- Mix all of the cake ingredients in a large mixing bowl, on medium speed, for 2 minutes.
- Pour the cake batter into the prepared Bundt pan.
- Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick or knife comes out clean.
- Allow the cake to rest for 15 minutes, before inverting it onto a cake plate or platter and allowing it to cool completely.
- Place the powdered sugar in a medium-sized bowl.
- Zest and juice the lemon.
- Add the lemon juice to the powdered sugar 1-tablespoon at a time, stirring between each tablespoon, until you get a smooth glaze consistency.
- Glaze the cooled Bundt cake and then garnish with lemon zest and poppy seeds.
PIN THIS RECIPE
Don’t let this recipe slip away. How often do you find a recipe intriguing, yet forget where to find it when you finally get the hankering to make it? Instead of digging through old posts or wandering aimlessly around on the internet, why not Pin this recipe to Pinterest where you can find it when you eventually need it? Simply Pin the image above and you’ll have it when that time comes. You can follow us HERE on Pinterest or simply click HERE to find all of our pin-worthy recipes.