Recipe Research

Lemon Cake

This lemon cake recipe comes from my aunt who used to make it for me when I would come over for the holidays. It yields a really moist cake with a strong lemon flavor and doesn't take that long to put together since it's not technically from scratch. Some of the ingredients seem unconventional but they are actually super helpful for putting together a moist and flavorful cake.

Tools

  • One large bowl
  • One small bowl
  • A hand or stand mixer
  • A skewer or meat fork

    • Ingredients

  • Betty Crocker Super Moist Lemon Cake
  • 1 small box lemon Jello
  • 4 eggs
  • 3/4 cup vegtable oil
  • 3/4 cup water
  • 1 tablespoon lemon extract
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice (roughly 2 lemons)

    • Steps

    1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees farenheit
    2. Put cake mix, jello, eggs, vegtable oil, water, and lemon extract into a large bowl and mix until well combinded
    3. Pour into large greased and floured tube pan
    4. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until done (a toothpick will come out clean)
    5. Mix together: 2 cups powdered sugar and 1/4 cup lemon juice in a small bowl to make glaze
    6. While cake is still hot and in the pan, poke holes across the top of the cake with a meat fork or skewer and pour your glaze over top
    7. Refrigerate overnight still in pan
    8. Remove cake from pan right before serving

    Sample Images

    eggs cracking lemon bundt cake poking holes cake batter lemon bundt cake serving cake plate cake pouring glaze in pan

    Recipe websites

  • NYT Cooking is a great website for finding quality recipes. It separates recipes out by occaision, region, diet, cook time, and even ingrdients. It's a super helpful resource but it almost feels like there's too much information and the options can be overwhelming. They do also have incredible food images which are a great resource.

  • Bon Apetit is another very well known recipe site. I really like how they have restaurant reviews and technique articles alonside their recipes. The added information feels like you're getting more from a subscription and gives you more of a connection to overall food culture.

  • Preppy Kitchen is a smaller website following more of the blog-style that is well associated with recipe sites. I love the approach of emphasizing seasonal recipes as it gives the viewer a sense of what is best to cook to have the freshest produce possible. I also really enjoy how it connects the viewer with the writer since it is just run by one person.

    • Other Sites

  • Matt Armendariz is a food photographer and I really love the quality of his images and his aesthetic approach to showing food. His color palette is one that really speaks to me as having punchy colors without being oversaturated. I also really love how simple his website functions with dropdown menus and clear distinctions between types of product.

  • Fishwife is a tinned fish company with a really strong approach to branding. I love their vibrant colors and their consistent approaches to illustration. I especially love how they incorporate recipes and merchandise into their site, creating a whole brand identity while primarily only selling fish.

  • Httpster is a we design website focused on displaying new and different websites. I really enjoy the time based scroll on the side that sorts out their posts by month. I think on a large scale restaurant website this could be a cool feature that sythesizes recipes with cooking seasonally.