Lemon Poppy Seed Cakes.....

Lemon Poppy Seed is a classic cake flavor. We had it as our wedding cake 12 years ago! I recently made a very large batch of individual bite sized glazed lemon poppy seed cakes. I used a fantastic recipe from Southern Living. Because I needed bite sized pieces I baked them in the Wilton square brownie bites silicone pans. But the recipe calls for Mini Bundt pans. They are regular muffin pans but with Bundt shaped cups. These work well when eat person wants their own small cake that's about 3 bites in size.

Lemon-Poppy Seed Cakes

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

3/4 cup milk

3/4 tsp. poppy seeds

3/4 tsp. almond extract

2 tsp. lemon zest, divided

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp. salt

1 1/4 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat butter and cream cheese at med speed till well blended. Gradually add granulated sugar, beating until creamy and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until yellow disappears after each addition. Beat in milk, poppy seeds, almond extract and 1 1/2 tsp. lemon zest. Mixture will be slightly lumpy.

Whisk together flour and next 2 ingredients in a large bowl. Gradually add to butter mixture, beating until well blended. Spoon batter into 1 greased and floured (12 cup) mini Bundt pan, filling all cups 3/4 full. Spoon remaining batter into second pan filling only 6 cups.

Bake at 350 for 24 - 26 minutes until wooden toothpick comes out clean. Remove pans to wire racks and let cakes cool 10 minutes.

Whisk together 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar, 1/4 cup lemon juice and remaining 1/2 tsp lemon zest until smooth. Drizzle glaze over warm cakes. Let cakes stand 4 to 5 minutes or until glaze is set.

* I dipped the cakes into the glaze after they were cooled. And then after the glaze was set I dipped them a second time. It was my experience that the glaze takes longer to set than a few minutes, but I made my glaze thinner to allow for dipping. Obviously if you use the small squares pan the cooking time is greatly reduced.