Holiday Lemon Bundt Cake Recipe

Makes 24 cakes

Chef Norbert Bomm’s Holiday Lemon Bundt Cake

Great things often come in small packages, and that’s the case with our Holiday Lemon Bundt Cake. Garnished with fresh honeyed cranberries and a dusting of icing sugar, we created the perfect little holiday treat. There is something special about mini bundt cakes. I’m not sure what it is, maybe it’s the fact that you can eat more than one. Is it because it only takes two or three bites to consume one of these little devils, or that they are so “French” looking and are so simple to bake? You have to agree that someone cannot ignore the fact that mini bundt cakes look so delicious and sophisticated.

Taking something like a bundt cake and changing one or two ingredients can enhance the nutritional value while creating a food that’s still full of flavor. The alternative to this bundt cake recipe involves the use of garbanzo beans, applesauce and fat-free buttermilk. Applesauce is a great way to decrease the amount of fat in a recipe while maintaining the moisture. If you don’t disclose that the cakes are made with garbanzo beans, your guests will never know. I tell people after and always get that “no way” look and response.

Garbanzo beans add not only protein but also fiber, which is proven to lower cholesterol. Plus, the usage of fat-free buttermilk lowers the amount of fat. The American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association and the American Cancer society are recommending eating beans as part of a heart-healthy diet, as it may help decrease your chances of heart disease.

Ingredients

For Honeyed Cranberries

• ½ cup honey
• 1 cup fresh cranberries
• 4 tablespoons water
• ½ cup of granulated sugar
• 1 medium orange

For Lemon Syrup

• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 tablespoon confectioners sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure lemon extract

For Yogurt Cream

• 1 cup whipping cream
• 1 cup Greek yogurt
• 1 tablespoon confectioners sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Lemon Bundt Cake

• 11 oz. drained garbanzo beans
• 1/2 cup fat-free buttermilk
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 5 oz. dried cranberries
• 5 eggs
• Zest of two lemons
• 2 tablespoons lemon extract
• 13 oz. granulated sugar
• 12 oz. all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tablespoon baking powder

Instructions

Make Honeyed Cranberries – Using a citrus zester, remove the peel of one orange. In a saucepan combine orange zest, honey, sugar and water. Stir and bring to a short simmer. Cool 20 minutes, transfer to a small bowl, add 2 cups of fresh cranberries. Refrigerate, covered for 8 hours. Remove cranberries from syrup, place on sheet pan and let sit until completely dry. FYI, leftover cranberries are a great addition to a bowl of steel cut oatmeal.

Make Lemon Syrup – In a small saucepan combine sugar, lemon juice, lemon extract and water and bring to a boil. Simmer over moderate heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Let the syrup cool.

Make Yogurt Cream – In a large bowl, whip cream until stiff peaks are just about to form. Beat in vanilla and sugar until peaks form. Make sure not to overbeat or else the cream will become lumpy and butter-like. Add Greek yogurt and whip for an additional 3 minutes. Set aside.

Bake Lemon Bundt Cake – 

• Preheat oven to 320°F. Rinse Garbanzo Beans in cold water.
• Place beans, buttermilk, vanilla, canola oil and applesauce in a food processor and mix at medium speed until smooth. Separate egg yolks and whites. Set egg whites aside.
• Pour bean puree into a mixer with paddle attachment. Add the egg yolks, granulated sugar, lemon zest, flour, lemon extract and baking powder and blend evenly at medium speed.
• In a separate mixer, with a wire whip, add the egg whites and beat slowly until foamy. Then increase speed and beat whites to stiff peak. Gently fold the egg whites and dried cranberries into batter.
• Spray mini bundt cake pans with non-stick cooking spray. Portion batter evenly into pans, filling the cake molds no more than ¾.
• Bake in a preheated convection oven for about 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the cakes comes out clean. Invert the bundt cakes onto a wire rack over a baking sheet. The cakes will rise during baking, so with a serrated knife remove the top part.
• Using a wooden skewer, poke holes evenly all over the cakes and brush with the lemon syrup. Brushing the bundt cakes with the syrup adds that extra lemon kick and keeps the cakes moist.
• Dust the cakes with icing sugar, garnish with yogurt cream, honeyed cranberries and fresh lemon zest.

Chef Norbert Bomm

Chef Norbert Bomm, Corporate Executive Chef, started with Morrison Healthcare in Chicago as Executive Chef and then moved to Atlanta as the Corporate Chef of R&D, where he led the Great Living and Children’s Hospital menu concept and worked with retail recipe development. Chef Bomm entered the culinary world in Hamburg, Germany and from there carved an international career for himself as Chef de Cuisine and Executive Chef with Hilton International. This propelled him into a kaleidoscope of posts in four continents: Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Americas. Bestowed with multiple honors and awards, as well as, the gold medal for the Culinary Olympics in Frankfurt, Germany; he actively exploits his talents for the benefit of charity and has raised significant dollars doing so. 

Before joining Morrison, he was, for ten years, the leading culinary force at the prestigious Fairmont Hotel in Chicago and the DIRONA award-winning restaurant Entre Nous, one of the top three rated restaurants in Chicago. Chef Bomm has a very simple food philosophy: using fresh, wholesome, seasonal ingredients, thoughtfully prepared foods that reduce the intake of excessive fat, calories and sodium; while delivering high-quality meals with satisfying flavor and solid nutritional values. He owns approximately 170 cookbooks, loves everything about food, cooking and food photography. His food blog, http://www.norbertskitchen.com, focuses on balance, preparing healthy food that isn’t too complicated. For him, it’s important to create real food that is full of flavor, not too much, not too little … that’s what he calls perfection.

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