Grapefruit Drizzle Cake

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With the brief appearence of summer, I decided that it was time to celebrate by making a summery cake.  Thumbing through my recipe books, I was completely uninspired by the page after page of berrylicious goodness, hankering instead for something with a bit of zest.  I flicked back to my the Recipe Challenge to see what I was baking this time last year and realised I was going through my hidden-middle cupcake phase, churning out Pimms No1. and Summer Pudding inspired goodies by the bucketload.  But what I really wanted was a big, share-y kind of cake.

It had to be a bundt.  I remain in love with my bundt tin (this cheapy from Amazon is a great starter one if you can't justify shelling out for Nordicware) and can't wait til I am free to buy myself more creative-shaped bakeware.  People who followed me through the challenge will have probably noticed that my posting has gone from daily (back then) to less than sporadic now I'm over here.  It's partly because I'm still pre-occupied with my small bites of elephant, and mostly because I have a few things I can't share on a blog which is poles apart from my usual confessional style of blogging.

Nevertheless, there will come a day when my life has changed to the extent that not only will I be the proud owner of a new bundt tin or two, but I may also have a real live KitchenAid Artisan in my kitchen too.  Slowly slowly, catchy monkey and all that.

So back to the bundt.  I wanted to do something different and became fixated on the idea of a grapefruit drizzle cake.  Nice and zingy, but not too sour.  I adapted a basic bundt recipe from DollyBakes and had intended to include grapefruit zest in the batter until I discovered that zesting properly ripe grapefruits is hard work.  After lots of teeth gnashing, I had about ten strands from two grapefruits so opted to include the zest of a lime too.  And with a lack of grapefruit extract in my cupboard (can you even buy it??) I went for a little Sicilian orange extract instead.  So technically it's a citrus bundt, but with a gloopy pink grapefruit glaze liberally spooned over the top, the grapefruit does dominate the subtle flavours.

It was shared with my work colleagues as 'an experiment, so don't expect to much' but given the rave reviews it got including a 9/10 from my (very biased chief) cake tester, I decided it was worthwhile sharing on the blog.  Personally, I would have liked a little more drizzle on the cake so the recipe recommends double the quanity

And this is how I did it.


  • 225g soft, unsalted butter plus extra for greasing the tin
  • 450g caster sugar
  • 4 medium eggs
  • 300g low fat Greek yogurt
  • 350g plain flour plus extra for dusting the pan
  • 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 1/2 tsp table salt
  • 1 tsp orange or lemon extract
  • zest and juice one pink grapefruit (you may need two depending on the size and how juicy they are)
  • zest of one lime
  • 25g golden granulated sugar plus extra for sprinkling
  • 10" bundt tin
  1. Preheat the oven to 180c/160c fan.  Liberally butter the bundt pan, ensuring you get into all the nooks and crannies, then dust with flour to cover all surfaces.  Tip the excess into the bin.
  2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, followed by a tablespoon of the flour from the 350g with each addition of an egg to stop the mixture from splitting.
  3. Mix the remaining flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt together in a bowl.
  4. Mix the zest, yogurt and essence in a measuring jug.
  5. Add one third of the flour mix to the batter and gently beat in.  Add half of the yogurt mixture and beat lightly until well combined.  Repeat until the flour and yogurt mixes are incorporated.
  6. Pour into the pre-prepared tin and bake for about 1 hour, checking from 50 minutes onwards until a skewer inserted into the deepest part of the cake comes out clean.
  7. Leave to cool in the tin for ten minutes until the cake has shrunk away from the sides.
  8. Whilst the cake is cooling, pour the grapefruit juice and granulated sugar into a small saucepan and heat gently until the sugar dissolves.  Boil rapidly until the liquid is reduced to a third of its original volume and you have a thick, sticky syrup.
  9. Turn the cake out onto a cooling rack then carefully drizzle the grapefruit syrup over the top. 
  10. When the syrup has cooled on the cake slightly, liberally sprinkle with the granulated sugar.