Raspberry Bundt Cake with Candied Lemon Zest Icing

He agreed we can give you our recipe!

I found an awesome recipe in an old library book years ago that called for mixing box cake, fruit, and jello mix; I could never find the exact recipe again, but I remember that it was very simple, and turned out great the few times I made it. One piece of advice I have for following a recipe, especially in baking, is to read the directions FIRST! Then go back and deal with ingredients, and re-follow them. I'm still working on taking my own advice, because it's an all to common occurrence that I'll start a recipe before I've read the entire thing, and it bites me in the ass!

Cheating with store bought cake and jello mix, allows me to spend more time on the lemon glaze with candied lemon zest for the icing. It's my sister-in-law's birthday and she loves lemon, (since I made her lemon meringue pie last year), I wanted to do a cake this year.

*Also, the first cake I made in my new bundt pan stuck to the bottom despite the fact that I greased it with ample amounts of cooking spray. To avoid this tragedy use shortening and flour all over the inside of the pan. Cooking spray is not enough!

*Skip the zest if it's too much work the cake will still be great!

Raspberry Bundt Cake with Lemon Glaze & Candied Lemon Zest

Raspberry Bundt Cake

1 box white cake mix
4 eggs
1/4 cup hot water
1 box raspberry jello mix
1/3 cup canola oil or veg oil
1/2 pint of fresh raspberries

Shortening
Flour

1. Mix 4 eggs, hot water, cake mix, oil, and jello on low speed for 30 seconds. Then mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add raspberries and stir.
2. Pour cake into greased bundt pan (greased with shortening and then dusted with flour) and bake at 325 degrees for 40 minutes. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out the cake onto a rack.

Ingredients for Lemon Glaze 

2 cups powdered sugar

5 tablespoons Meyer lemon juice

1. Mix sugar and lemon juice until smooth.
2. Ice cake once the cake is cool to the touch. 

Ingredients for Candied Lemon Zest

4  Meyer lemons for their zest

2 cups sugar + 1 tbsp. sugar 

1 cup of cool water

1. Peel cleaned lemons avoiding the pith. Chop lemon peels and pour about 3 cups of boiling water over them, and let them sit for 30 minutes, then drain them.
2. While waiting on the peels, heat cool water and sugar over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. 
3. Drain the lemon zest and add to the sugar and water for about 10 minutes on medium low. 
4. Cover overnight.
5. Drain the lemons from the syrup, sprinkle with tbsp. sugar and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Sprinkle over iced cake.