Lemon, Thyme, and Olive Oil Cakes

I saw these on Pioneer Woman's site and knew they would be perfect for Easter Brunch. I decided to try to make them mini and found these super cute liners. Aren't they adorable?

Well I did a trial run and they didn't turn out so great. They suck to the liners pretty badly, so I decided for the brunch I would do like the recipe calls for and just butter/flour the pans. They came out great and were very good. I did end up making them using a mini muffin tin and it made about 3 dozen cakes. They baked for about 17 minutes.

This recipe is different because it uses the blender to mix the ingredients. I had a little trouble with the first step of mixing the sugar and zest together - my blender just would not pull all the sugar to the middle. Otherwise this was a simple recipe with great results.

Lemon, Thyme and Olive Oil Cakes

From: The Pioneer Woman Cooks

Ingredients:

Cakes:

1 Tbsp melted butter
1 1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbsp grated lemon zest
2 eggs
¼ cups olive oil
⅔ cups milk
1 cup flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 tsp minced fresh thyme

Glaze:
1-½ cup powdered sugar
2 Tbsp melted butter
3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice (more as needed)

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Prepare a muffin pan with melted butter and then dust with a little bit of flour - or spray with cooking spray with flour. Pulse the sugar and lemon zest in a blender until combined. Add the eggs one at a time, then gradually pour in the olive oil and milk, pulsing until emulsified into a thin batter, about 30 seconds. Don’t over blend or the cakes will be too puffy.

Whisk one cup flour, the baking powder, salt and thyme in a small bowl. Add to the blender in 2 batches until just combined. Pour the batter unto the prepared pan and bake until the cakes just start to pull away from the sides of the pan and spring back when lightly touched, about 25 minutes depending on your oven.

In the meantime, make the glaze: whisk the powdered sugar, melted butter and lemon juice until smooth, adding more lemon juice if too thick. Drizzle over the cooled cakes or turn the cakes over and dunk the tops in the glaze. Garnish with a thyme sprig.