Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt Cake Celebration

My Mom was here for the last ten days. In a row. My mother, from Texas. Ten.

It’s wild to have your family around you, like LIVING around you, after you haven’t done it for more than a weekend in the last 16 years. It is easy to get mad or incredulous at their completely human flaws. It is easy to forget that you are now older than they were when they had you. It is easy to misplace your compassion for other people who, exactly like you, had no fucking clue what they were doing when they did it, they just did it. They just lived and shared experiences with other people and made mistakes and tried to pay their debts and celebrate their successes in the very same way you yourself are doing exactly right now. It is easy to forget that they just had different experiences. And that is why they are who they are and you are who you are and everybody is WHO everybody is. It is easy, and stupid, to forget all that.

Recognize and Face the Reality of this Cookbook.

 For Christmas or my birthday a few years ago, my Mom gave me present. A cookbook. One she made, by hand. My Mom is one of these people that “scrapbook.” Often, to the detriment of whatever fun event we are all experiencing together, my Mother will inevitably stop us all in the middle of that activity so that she might take a picture of us, so that she might add it to a page in one of her maybe 20 unfinished scrapbooks. She has made and is still making scrapbooks for every one of her 4 children and 2 grandchildren, except for me. Scrapbooks celebrating a certain age, or wedding, or college career, or what have you. I thought for the longest time that I didn’t get a scrapbook because I didn’t do things like, “graduate from college” or “keep a boyfriend.” I was just sort of rotating between fabulous careers in retail, office administration and the art of waiting tables.

I don’t mean to be flip. I mean I do. I totally mean to be flip, but I don’t mean to hate on any one of those choices in career. I learned more about the human condition and about myself in those jobs than I ever did not finishing my college career. I didn’t make much money but the money I made I spent mostly on alcohol and hilarious adventures and it was awesome and I don’t regret those outrageous nights and early, early mornings one tiny bit. But, I did totally have my feelings hurt because ALL the other kids and grandkids had scrapbooks of their awesome lives and I did not. So, you gotta understand how much it meant to me, when I got the literal Mother of All Scrapbooks. It wasn’t that she didn’t think my life was worth documenting (or you know, maybe it was, who knows), but that she had been spending months of hours making a book that would mean something To Me. This cookbook she made, just the scale of it, is fucking impressive.

Don't even worry - I got Thanksgiving on lock down.

 It is strategically laid out according to coordinating color platforms and time-space efficiency. This cookbook can fill out its own 1040EZ. This cookbook became self aware and found the cure for pediatric AIDS ten years ago. It is also filled with recipes from the members of my family and childhood that I love and cherish with my whole heart. Unlike the other scrapbooks, it is a history book of more than just mine own life. And I fucking love it and it makes me cry just to think about it and I still remember to thank my Mom for making it for me at least once a quarter.

My mom writes like a girl.

So, in honor of my Moms and celebrating her visit, while also celebrating the fact that she went the fuck home afterwards, I made this recipe from the “Easter” section of the “Holidays” tab of my awesome-ass cookbook. It is an old recipe and an easy one. You can tell it is from the 60s or 70s because of all the damn eggs. It is the moistest and most dense cake and is literally amazing and it is a special gift from my mom to me to you. As my mother writes on this page - everything in the book is hand written because she wants me to have an example of her handwriting after she passes :(
“This is a Lenten season recipe. The poppy seeds represent new growth, and bursting forth from the Lenten experience.”





Shizz Besides the Basics:
You can make this recipe without a little hand mixer, but it is really a lot easier to do it with. You will also need a Bundt pan. And a clear schedule for at least three days because you are going to be eating cake.


Ingredients:
Cake:
1 package butter recipe yellow cake mix (Be sure to look for the butter or “golden butter” flave of cake mix. It is harder to find, but it is on that shelf somewhere, not necessarily next to the other yellow cakes. I think this is another sign that this recipe is older than the Nixon administration.)

I eat pieces of unfertilized ova like you for breakfast!

4 eggs (literally, four, eggs)

½ cup Wesson Oil (all vegetable oil used to be Wesson Oil, like a Davenport and a Hoover and a Coke. I use canola.)

¼ cup poppy seeds (cheaper in the bulk spices section)

1 small box instant vanilla pudding mix

2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice

It's a lemonparty!.

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon butter

~3 tablespoons lemon juice






Order of Operations:
1. Set ovens to stun, or 350.

2. The bulk of the short instruction given from my mother on this recipe is “Mix ingredients in order given.” And that is a very good place to start.

3. I am reading this book about the science of cooking and how to engage your thinly veiled autism spectrum disorder (nothing dis-orderly about this right here!!) into the magical cooking and baking process, and I think there really is some credence to having your shit at room temperature before you get going. So, if you can think about it, pop your eggs out of the ice box about half an hour early. Or don’t. Instead you can sit there and stifle the science that WANTS to work in your favor. Totally up to you.

Add some Cuervo Gold and you've got a wonderful night.

4. Whip out your hand beater you know what I am not even going to pluck that low hanging fruit I am just gonna keep right on telling you to use your hand-held electric mixer to incorporate your wet ingredients into your dry ones. Start by pouring the cake mix into a high-sided mixing bowl.



 

In every egg there hides a heart of gold. Even the brown ones.

5. Crack your room temperature but not salmonella’ed eggs one by one, into a separate, eggs-only tiny bowl. Crack one egg in the little bowl, and then inspect for errant shells, and then dump that one egg in with the cake mix. I have personally never gotten a gross half-germinated bloody weird egg. I suppose if I did I would probably just sick up all over my muffins and swear off cooking forever. But, if you were to get a bad egg, or lose a bunch of tiny pieces of shell into your cracked egg, you will only fuck up the one egg in your little bowl – not all four eggs, and not all four eggs + cake mix.

6. Add your (1/4 cup) Wesson Earl and your (1 cup) water.

Pretty sure this is a full time job in Afghanistan.

7. (1/4 cup) of poppy seeds into the mix. Side note – this recipe will cause you to fail drug tests for heroin. So, maybe not the best treat for aspiring pilots, Life-Flight nurses, Angelina Jolie.

 
 8. Instant Jello Puddn gets torn open and dumped right up in there.

You should see how I treat my Honey.

 9. Squeeze out a couple of tablespoons (usually about one half of a lemon) of juice and toss it on in. There are many, many more efficient methods of juicing a lemon than the one pictured here, but not as many methods make such rad photos. At your own house, choose the juicing method that best suits YOUR particular set of needs. Go on, you deserve it.


 

You want your batter more like New York and less like Birmingham.

10. Use your hand mixer and blend until you have a smooth batter with more or less equally integrated poppy seeds. Then you shall ready your vessel.





11. There are two methods to preparing the Bundt pan. One can either use the Baking spray from Pam, which does a bang up job at keeping shit from sticking and also doesn’t add fat and calories, OR...one can keep in the tradition of the times from which this recipe was born, and one can grease + flour their Bundt pan. Guess which one I’mma do.

12. I don’t have “shortening” or “Crisco” or whatever because I am not that committed to suicide right now. I DO however have what can only be described as “Deenian” amounts of butter. Hilariously, I just googled paula dean to see how to spell her last name, and 4th thing to auto-suggest was “paula deen riding things”. That’s kinda hilarious in a way that is almost funny.

A scene from the upcoming summer blockbuster, American Bundt.

13. Grab a pat of butter and smear it on every inside surface of your Bundt pan. I think a liberal application is appropriate here. You are building the foundation for the amazing crispety crust your cake will grow as a means of defense to keep you out, or to keep mother nature in. If God was here, he’d tell it to your face: Man is some kind of sinner. WHooAaaoOoa.

Bam Margera aint got shit on me.

14. Next, a tablespoon of white flour, if you please. Shake your flour out of your measuring spoon in a manner such as to evenly distribute your flour over the buttery sticky walls. It doesn’t need to be perfect at this stage, just kinda in the bowl and around everywhere.






 15. Then make like a tambourine and bop your Bundt pan with your hand, bouncing your excess flour around until all your flourless patches are now a beautiful, pristine white. Think “Ranch Dressing on Pizza White.” Or “Tea Party White.” Or “Will.I.Am White.” I don’t even know who that is other than I saw him on an episode of American Idol so I am assuming he is the new Will Smith Black Guy that everybody gets to make fun of as being “too white.” If there is a more appropriate African-American Celebrity Entertainer But Not One In Sports for me to use there, then just go ahead and make that mental substitution on your own. Dump out any leftover flour that just doesn't want to stick to anything.

16. Once your Bundt pan is sufficiently tarred and feathered, then grab your batter bowl and gently pour your batter into your Bundt pan, using gravity to help you, until you have scraped every last drop into that frickin pan. Then lift the whole pan up and give it a little whack against the countertop, just to be sure no air bubbles are trying to sabotage your business. Place your Bundt pan on a cookie sheet stabilizer if you like (this might also help more-evenly distribute the heat, but I am not sure because I haven’t finished reading that chapter yet) and pop it into the oven.

17. My momma’s recipe says leave it go for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. I tell ya, I had to leave mine go for near 55 minutes, and I coulda left it another 10 probably. It is a dense ass cake. Lotta wet in there to turn into dry. And the best part about this cake is the juxtaposition of the crunchity crust and the moist moist moist (ha made you say it three times, Alex) cake, and you need long and even heat to get that crust. So, know your oven and figure out your time accordingly. But prepare to have to wait a fucking whole hour for cake. Don’t start this shit after dinner, thinking you gonna have dessert before it’s sexy time with your partner. Because it is guaranteed you will have to give up the ass before you get your cake. Dudes cannot wait an hour for dessert. Scientific Fact.

When your cake reaches maturity, it'll have taken several pricks.

18. Alright alright okay. So use one of those millions of extra wooden toothpicks you have diligently stocked in your pantry, just for the occasion of cake testing, and stick it in your cake. If it comes out without a million crumbs and wet shit stuck to it, then you can take the cake. Otherwise, 7 more minutes and try again.


19. When the cake comes out, let it cool for just a spell while you make up some glaaaaaaaaze.

Chris Farley's last meal(s).

20. Small saucepan, medium heat, (1 teaspoon) butter goes in. (1 cup) of powdered sugar, and about three tablespoons of lemon juice. Stir and heat until it all dissolves and looks like glaze, maybe 3 or 5 minutes. Remove from heat for 2 minutes and let it thicken up just a hair.




21. Grab yourself a nice cake surface. Maybe you have a cake plate. Maybe you have a pedestal cake thing because you had a lot of cousins and a registry at Crate & Barrel. Maybe you just have a big dinner plate or a cutting board. Whatever it is, choose it and get it ready.

Just out of the frame there are birds alighting on my shoulders.

 22. Using pot holders, as your Bundt pan will still be trying to stabilize its molecular structure by releasing stored heat into the atmosphere and burning the fuck out of you, grab your Bundt pan and flip it over, inverting it, onto your cake surface. Wiggle your pan, tap it, tambourine it, whatever and remove it from your cake, leaving a freaking beautiful cake on its appropriate surface.

I like glaze in my Bundt hole. Don't judge

23. Brush your glaze onto your still warm cake. I use my silicone pastry brush / sauce mop thing because it makes me feel fancy but you can easily drizzle that shit with a spoon. Drip it like erotic candle wax (I assume) onto your cake, letting it drip down on both sides, looking all awesome and glazey. This glaze will eventually harden off and should not be neglected when you find it stuck to the cake plate at a later cake feeding. It is very tasty, scraped off with a fork.


24. Slice yourself off a piece and burst forth with new growth.