Cornmeal Lime Snack Cake

My older kid loves to read. You probably will think I am exaggerating when I say she reads about 20 books a week on an average. More during holidays. Anyway, that makes me go to the library once a week and sometimes twice. After picking out books for her and checking them out, I saw a book on cakes. I don't even remember the title of the book - Sorry. I flipped through since I had crossed the limit of books they give per household and I couldn't possibly borrow it. This was one of the cake recipes from that book and it was called Cornmeal Lime Chili cake. The author had added chillies to the cake batter. Even when I wanted to experiment, didn't want to waste the whole batch if kids refused to eat them and skipped it. My kids liked the flavor very much that I had to bake them again for their snacks. It is not very sweet and I tweaked the recipe to use less oil than what it originally called for so that I wouldn't feel guilty sending these as snacks.

One Year Back - Macadamia and White Chocolate Chip cookies, Quick Palmiers
Two Years Back - Gingerbread Biscotti
Three Years Back - Cranberry White chocolate Chip Bars
Makes one 10" bundt pan, or two 8 X 4 loaves or 24 cupcakes.
Ingredients:
Canola Oil - 2/3 cup
Buttermilk - 1 1/3 cups
All purpose flour - 2 1/2 cups
Cornmeal - 1/2 cup (Fine ground preferred)
Baking powder - 2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Sugar - 1 3/4 cups
Lime zest - 2 tsp (You can skip it if you are feeding people who are picky about green things in the cake)
Freshly squeezed lime juice - 1/4 cup (I used key limes)
Eggs - 4 large

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 F (325 F in case of dark pans). In a bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, salt. Set aside. In another bowl, beat sugar and oil. Add eggs one at a time and beat till nicely incorporated. Add the lime zest, lime juice and beat one more time. Now add the dry ingredients in thirds alternating with buttermilk starting and ending with dry ingredients. Stir slowly and pour into the prepared pan. Bake cupcakes for 22 - 24 minutes and bundt pan for 55 - 60 minutes and the loaves for 40 - 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then turn on to the wire rack to cool completely. This tasted great for snack and my kids enjoyed them.

Check out what my friends are baking for this bake-a-thon :  Preethi, Priya, Srivalli,  Sumana and Jayasri.    

Enjoy.