I have downright baffled myself.
I may have mentioned that I’m moving this week. Moving is… horrifying. Yes, I’m being dramatic. Please indulge me.
Among the things that I found under my bed and in the dark recesses of my closet as I’ve been cleaning and packing are:
eight kitten stuffed animals.
one medium sized bunny stuffed animal.
three puppy stuffed animals.
….. WWWHHHHHYYYY?
one baby sock…. A. Baby. Sock. I have no baby. Seriously… What the heck is going on here!?
a tiny rhinestone turtle toe ring. Really?
one sweater that gives my arms a rash. I found out the hard way.
one wooden bobble head turtle toy. Why so many turtles hiding in my house?
and… a rock. Because… yea. A rock.
Take these Little Lemon Hazelnut Cakes as a token of my love, affection, and dwindling sanity.
This recipe is like a secret weapon. It’s super adaptable and always perfectly moist. At its root, the cake is an easy buttermilk and oil cake that comes together with two bowls and a whisk. I used hazelnut oil, but almond oil, walnut oil, or olive oil also work beautifully. Also feel free to add any sort of citrus zest you like. This recipe makes twelve tender and darling little cakes. Go on. Bake em. I’ll just be over here in the corner losing my ever loving mind. Don’t mind me.
Little Lemon Hazelnut Cakes
makes 12 little (cup)cakes
recipe adapted ever so slightly from Jun Tan
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup hazelnut oil
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
zest of one lemon
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Place a rack in the center of the oven. Line a cupcake pan with 12 cupcake liners and set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. In another medium bowl, whisk together hazelnut oil, buttermilk, egg, vinegar, vanilla extract and lemon zest. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients all at once. Whisk together until just combined and no lumps remain. Divide between twelve cupcake cups and bake for 18-22 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center of one of the little cakes comes out clean.
Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove from the pan to cool completely and top with an easy lemon glaze.
Lemon glaze is simple 1 heaping cup of powdered sugar mixed with the juice of half a lemon and a dash of water or milk to reach your desired consistency.
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I hope that moving is going well. We sort of moved when the baby came. I think they call it nesting. My version was just to take everything out of its place and maybe find new ones. My closet made me cry, too. I found a hammer. And a glittery scarf. I never wear scarves. And green leather leopard pants from a Halloween costume that might fit my over my foot now. Yeah, those tears were rough. Hope your new hip loft is as slammin’ as you hope.
I feel for you! (From a gal who moved at least once a year for 12 years of my life) There is a Czech saying that my auntie shared with me and I would now like to share with you: “It is better to burn your house down than to move.” Ok, not uplifting, but sure feels that way.
Good luck! And I’m impressed you are still baking & posting!
wow crave me ! ><
this post made me giggle so much. Where did the baby sock come from? thats weird! and so many stuffed toys? are you taking them all with you to your new place? lol.
cupcakes look great must try these.
hope you are not rocking in a corner somewhere – gd luck with the move! x
Hi, we don’t have, use, know… buttermilk, where I come from, so I was wondering, can I just use butter instead? How much butter for half a cup of buttermik do you think??? Thank’s a lot. You have a great blog:)
here’s what you can use instead of buttermilk!
http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2009/10/the-best-buttermilk-substitutions/
I love your suggestions for customizing. Not that lemon and hazelnut don’t already rock – YUM! I’ve always wondered about baking with nut oils – they’re so delicious, but I tend to just drizzle them on things (too boring!).
I read that walnut and other nut oils have a low smoke point and thus are not a good choice for baking. Guess you’ve found that not to be the case?
Good luck!
i find that nut oils are great to bake with! they’re not great to sautee or cook with because of the low smoke point, but they are lovely in cakes and such.
Great looking cakes.
It sounds like the Goodwill Thrift store is going to love you this week.
Moving is always stressful. I’ve done it more times than most. The little cakes look delish! Thanks for the recipe.
Dwindling sanity, that would be me, too, this week.
Love me some muffins. And your eye-candy picts.
I moved in January (across the street, but moving is moving.) There’s nothing like cake to set you right during a week of stress. :-) Love the lemon glaze…delish!
I just moved recently and it is insanity-provoking. Hope it’s all over soon! Sweet little cakes too — I do have some walnut oil lying around, and how much salad dressing can one girl make? :)
If we ever move I will cry trying to pack up this house. My son could rival you with the stuffed animals and other such random stuff..and he’s 7! Good Luck with the move.
Lemon baked goods are loved in our house. I’ll give these a whirl and see what the kids think.
You know what else is delicious with hazelnuts? Grapefruit! I’m totally trying these with grapefruit :)
I’m scared of the stuff that’s living under my bed and in the back of my closet. I don’t want to know. That’s why i’ll probably stay in this apartment for the next 10 years…so I can avoid ever having to find out!
Oh Joy! I am moving on a yearly basis, and every time I ask myself why oh why do I have so much stuff!!
The worst is that London kitchens tend to be mini-sized and I come with a whole trailer full of baking accessories, pans and obscure kitchen machines that I never really use..
I wish you all the best with the move, and a BIG kitchen in your new place! :)
(…and how you find the time to still make such delicious cakes in all the moving stress remains a mystery to me, you rock!)
I saw this today… and thought, we have lemons!! I could so make these… and I did. And they were amazing. Thanks!
These look great!
Sadly… your pictures of horribly unhealthy food and awesome writing are too detrimental to my diet… all I want is whatever you put up here. So, this is a complement! I promise. You’re too good! But for now, you’ll have to be off my reader. :( Sad pandas.
Jen
Will be back when she can eat what you document!
A quick question – I notice that when I leave a comment, my Onsugar avatar shows up…is your site hosted on Onsugar?
I’m making these cakes today!
Moving is just sooo hard.. I agree….Once…years ago…I said to myself “I’d rather have a baby than move “..after my four children were grown and we were downsizing…I thought to myself…well…i won’t say that again…but I lmost would…Love all your lemon goodies..just made the citrus cookies this wknd that you posted some time back.Yum!
oh wow these are really easy to make thank you for sharing :O)
I just stumbled upon your site tonight and LOVE this recipe. I am making my mother’s birthday cake this year. I have recently realized how reliant I have become on cake mixes (oh the horror!). So I have decided her cake will be “from scratch”…she wants a lemon cake, I attempted a recipe that fell flat…or never rose to begin with and now have 36 hours to find the perfect recipe and bake, frost and decorate before the big party!
The reason behind this long ramble is that I would love to make this recipe as a three layer 8 inch cake but am not sure of how much batter I will need. I am also concerned with the amount of oil a doubled recipe would need. Also would it be possible to add lemon juice to up the lemon flavor? I would love the Hazelnut to be a understated flavor with Lemon leading the show.
I’m sorry for all the questions, I hope you see this soon enough, but if not I will be sure to make this cake for a different occasion it sounds delicious!
~Deese
I’m sure that our Joy is way better versed at this than I am, but I find a recipe for 12 cupcakes usually makes 1 layer of a cake…
Thanks Debbi.
I ended up only doubling the recipe and making three short layers. With lemon curd between them and covered it all with a cream cheese Italian Buttercream. It was touch and go but all came together. One of my little sisters had three HUGE pieces over 2 days, she’s a running freak who wears a size 0 so it was mind boggling to watch!
This cake was amazing! I will be making it again.
Hi Joy! I made these on Friday night. I used olive oil (because I couldn’t find any hazlenut oil.) I have to say they turned out very salty. And not in a good way. Maybe I did something wrong but I double checked and I followed the directions exactly. Maybe if you use olive oil there is no need for extra salt in the recipe?
Hope you will accept this award!!
http://thehealthyapron.com/2010/03/18/the-sunshine-award.aspx
thanks for this recipe! I made some a few days ago and raved about them to my mom so much that she made me make another batch when I visited for the weekend.
I looked for hazelnut oil at the store but it was pretty expensive, so I went with olive oil instead. They tasted great but both times I made them they came out pretty greasy. The grease soaked right through the cupcake papers and the cakes themselves were really really crumbly. Is that because I used olive oil? I’m new to trying to alter recipes so I was wondering if you had a suggestion.
Thanks! I love your site! I want to try almost everything you post.
Great recipe… but something went wrong in my kitchen… they tasted delicious but they oozed oil through the cupcake liners :( … I used olive oil, can that be the problem? Colour wise and taste wise they were really amazing, but they did not lift much… I’m going to try once more today for my kids Bday (together with the red velvet cake and carrot-cake cupcakes…yummy!) wish me luck!!
Greats from NL!
My oh my was this a delicious recipe! I had a bunch of limes in my fridge, so I made the recipe with lime and almond oil and oh man it was good stuff! I used this mini tiered cakes pan (doubling the recipe) and drizzled icing all over, which promptly absorbed into the cakes in the most delicious way. YUM!!!!
so i promised a friend i would make cupcakes for a driving/camping trip. he really wanted lemon cupcakes. so i go to make this recipe (midnight, the night before we go of course) and i’m out of flour, sugar, and muffin cups. well i used chickpea flour and honey instead of flour and sugar, and teeny tiny xmas muffin cups stashed way at the back of the cupboard, so i got a bazillion cupcakes…but they turned out so good! with chickpea flour! i was like no way!
thanks joy i love your blog!
Hi! These cute little cupcakes look fantastic! I was wondering if you knew what role the white vinegar plays in baking?
I made these little morsels last night for a co-worker’s birthday lunch today. SO Yummy! Surprisingly easy to throw together but a lip-smackingly lemon-y punch. I will definitely make these again.
These little cakes are completely delicious. I love every single recipe Joy posts! The first time I made these I had to substitute buttermilk for plain yogurt and hazelnut oil for canola oil+almond extract, and they were so good I had people asking me for the recipe left and right. I just made them again but vegan-ized, with a banana instead of the egg and buttermilk, switched the sugar for maple syrup, and they still came out with the most moist-but-light consistency. This recipe is a keeper.
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