I love retro food. Comfortable, nostalgic, homey food that catapults me back to my childhood. A bundt pan sends me there at the speed of light. “Bundt” even sounds retro! These old-fashioned baking pans produce lovely, moist, dense cake that you can pick up with your hands to eat. I drizzled some lemony icing over this one, so it needed a fork!
It’s interesting when you think about other cultures and how food really doesn’t go in and out of fashion. Italians have been eating the same dishes for centuries. Yet here in Canada meatloaf, Shepard’s pie, macaroni and cheese, tuna fish casserole, corned beef and cabbage, beans and weiners this list could go on forever! have been turned into uptown meatloaf, prime rib Shepard’s pie with horseradish mash, lobster macaroni and cheese, albacore tuna steak char-grilled deconstructed lasagna – you get the idea. I can guarantee that if you were invited to a pot luck and decided to take any one of the retro dishes that I listed prepared as they were fifty years ago, the dish would be devoured! Don’t get me wrong, I love giving a new spin to a tried and true recipe but it’s important to celebrate the originals.
I wrote this recipe on a scrap of paper over thirty five years ago. I found it at the bottom of my recipe box.
Lemon Poppy-Seed Bundt Cake – source unknown
Preheat oven 325*F
½ cup butter, room temperature
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sour cream
¼ cup milk
½ teaspoon lemon extract
Zest of 2 lemons
Grease and flour a 10” bundt pan.
Beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time – beat well after each addition
Sift flour, baking powder and salt together then add alternately with sour cream and milk.
When mixed add lemon zest, lemon extract and poppy seeds.
Pour into bundt pan. And place in oven.
Check cake after 50 minutes. The cake is finished when a wooden tester comes out of the cake cleanly.
Cool cake on a cooling rack for 10 minutes then remove from pan to cool completely.
Lemon Glaze
enough fresh lemon juice to make a drizzle – about 2 tablespoons
1 cup icing sugar
Mix well then pour over cake.
THE LOVE: Make sure to butter and flour the pan really well so that the cake doesn’t stick and your cake shows off the pan design.
Update: I really need a proof reader! Use half a cup of poppy seeds. Thanks Deb!
one year ago: jumbo blueberry cinnamon muffins
What’s your favorite retro dish?
Thanks for reading.
