Easy Lemon Poppy Seed Mini Bundt Cakes with Lemon Icing
Fresh lemon flavor in a sweet mini Bundt cake that comes together easily. Drizzled with a fresh lemon glaze, these mini Bundt cakes are perfect for those last minute summer barbeques.
I love desserts that come together quickly. That means less time I have to wait to eat it, and cleanup is easy. Sold! I know you’ll love these sweet cakes with the cute little poppyseeds and that fresh lemon flavor.
The icing made with fresh lemon juice is so deliciously lemony, it’s unbelievable. And the optional lemon frosting is almost too good. Let’s just say, you won’t want it to be optional.
If you love quick and easy desserts, you’ll have to try my Double Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes or my Blueberry Coffee Cake with Sour Cream.
Ingredients
To make these mini Bundt cakes, we use our standard baking ingredients, such as butter, sugar, flour, eggs, and extract.
Additional ingredients to give these Bundts their delicious flavor include:
- Lemon extract We get the concentrated lemon flavor using extract rather than lemon juice. Save the lemon juice for the lemon icing.
- Lemon zest While not totally necessary, it adds an extra lemon zing. Plus, it looks really pretty when sprinkled on top of the mini Bundt cakes.
- Sour cream or yogurt Adds extra moisture, ensuring our Bundts stay soft and moist.
- Poppyseeds While they don’t add flavor per se, they wouldn’t be poppyseed Bundt cakes without them. Plus, they look really cute speckled throughout the cakes, and sprinkled on top.
Why you’ll love these mini Bundt cakes
They are so moist and delicious. The reverse creaming method gives a nice tender crumb, lending to the moistness of the cakes.
They have a wonderfully delicious lemon flavor. Add the lemon cream cheese frosting for an over-the-top lemon experience.
They’re easy to make. While not quite a one-bowl recipe, they’re still easy to whip up, making them a great choice when you need a quick dessert.
Recipe Instructions
As I mentioned above, this recipe is pretty easy to throw together. It’s almost a one bowl recipe, but I needed that second bowl to whip the eggs up.
First, we’re going to whisk all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Then, we’ll melt the butter and add it to the dry ingredients. Using an electric hand mixer, we’ll blend the butter in with the dry ingredients. It will look like sand with some bigger clumps when it’s all blended in. This is the reverse creaming method. I like this method for baked goods because it produces a more tender crumb and has greater moisture retention, helping to keep these cakes super moist.
Next, we’ll add the wet ingredients, poppyseeds, and lemon zest into the mixture and blend until fully incorporated. It may seem a little lumpy, but that’s ok.
In a separate bowl, we’ll add the eggs and beat for 60 seconds until the eggs look frothy. Add the beaten eggs into the batter and mix until fully incorporated.
Add the batter to your prepared mini bundt pans and bake in a 350 F oven for 25 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the middle should come out mostly clean with a few crumbs. Remove the cakes from the oven and let them rest for 10 minutes before removing them to a baking rack to fully cool.
Lemon Icing
The lemon icing for these cakes is so delicious! It’s just one cup of powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Mix until blended completely and drizzle over the fully cooled cakes. The bright, citrusy flavor really makes these cakes shine. As an optional addition, you can add some lemon cream cheese frosting to mini Bundt cakes, making them even more deliciously lemony.
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FAQ’s
Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to one week. They’re ok to sit on the counter uncovered for a day. If you do add the cream cheese frosting, then they will need to go in the fridge. Cream cheese frosting is not shelf-stable like regular buttercream frosting, it must be refrigerated.
Lemon Poppyseed Mini Bundt Cakes
Ingredients
Lemon Poppyseed Mini Bundt Cakes
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup butter, unsalted
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup yogurt or sour cream
- 3/4 cup milk
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon lemon extract
- 1 tablespoon poppyseeds
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- 24 tablespoons lemon cream cheese frosting (optional)
Lemon Glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
Instructions
Lemon Poppyseed Mini Bundt Cakes
- Preheat the oven to 350 F.
- Add the dry ingredients to a large bowl and whisk together.
- Melt the 1/2 cup of butter, not all the way to liquid form, just until the butter is very soft and partially liquid. I microwave it for 30 seconds and it turns out perfect.
- Add the melted butter to the dry ingredients and blend together with an electric mixer. The mixture will look like coarse sand with some larger lumps.
- Beat in the 1/2 cup yogurt, 3/4 cup milk, 1 teaspoon each of vanilla and lemon extract, 1 tablespoon of lemon zest, and 1 tablespoon of poppyseeds, until fully incorporated.
- In a smaller bowl, add the 2 eggs. Beat with the electric mixer until lightly fluffy and frothy, roughly 60 seconds. You will want to rinse off the removeable whisk attachments before beating the eggs.
- Add the beaten eggs to the batter and mix together with the electric mixer until fully incorporated and smooth.
- Spoon the batter into prepared (sprayed with butter or vegetable oil spray) mini bundt cake pans. Fill the wells about 3/4 of the way full. Since I use the silicone molds, I put them on a large baking sheet before I add the batter to them. It's easier to get them in the oven that way. If you are using metal bundt pans, you wouldn't have to do this.
- Bake the cakes for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the thickest part of a cake comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes before removing from the molds onto a baking rack to continue cooling off. Although, you really ought to try one straight from the oven. So delicious!
Lemon Glaze
- In a small bowl, add the powdered sugar and lemon juice and mix until fully incorporated. It will seem like it isn't coming together very well in the beginning. Just keep stirring and you'll see that it does. It will turn nice and smooth with just a little bit of effort.
- Drizzle the icing over the cooled down bundt cakes. If the bundt cakes are not cooled down, the glaze will just melt off of them. Let them sit for 10 minutes so the glaze sets before enjoying. Yum!
- If you are adding the frosting, this is the time to add it. I find it easiest to pipe it onto the cakes. If you don't have a piping bag or tips, you could spoon it on as well.
Notes
- Store mini Bundt cakes in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week. They can sit on the counter, covered, overnight as long as they do not have the cream cheese frosting on them.
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