Limoncello Bundt Cake

This is the queen of boozy cakes. Three-fourths of a cup of limoncello baked into the cake, then another 1/2 cup in a soaking syrup AFTER baking...eyebrows will raise at the rapidity of limoncello consumption in your household.

I am a big fan of alcohol-spiked box mix concoctions. The alcohol masks/ameliorates the box cake mix aftertaste and the texture of the box mix is just so plush and moist that it's just useless to deny that such a texture is hard to replicate with from-scratch recipes. And with the myriad of liqueurs at one's disposal, the combinations are endless.



Limoncello Cake (adapted from Blog Well Done and about.com)

Ingredients:
1 box yellow cake mix (probably white or lemon cake mix will work fine too)
1 small box instant vanilla pudding mix (the four-serving size, could also use lemon flavored)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup water
3/4 cup limoncello
4 eggs

3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup limoncello
3 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp lemon zest

1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a bundt ban.

With an electric mixer, combine the cake mix, pudding mix, oil, water, limoncello, and eggs. Beat until smooth. Pour batter into bundt pan and bake at 325 for about 1 hour, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Let cake cool for about 10 minutes. While it's cooling, put all the soaking syrup ingredients (butter, brown sugar, lemon juice, and zest) into a saucepan and bring up to a boil. Then using thin wooden skewers, chopsticks, or even just a fork, poke holes all over the top surface of the cake and pour/brush the syrup on the cake, letting it soak in before brushing on more. Reserve about 1/3 of the syrup for the other side of the cake. Once the cake is completely cooled, run a plastic knife around the edges of the cake to loosen the cake and invert it onto your serving platter. Brush on the remaining syrup and top with the sliced almonds for garnish.

Be careful! It's quite a boozy punch!