The moist, wonderful cake is Maida Heatter’s East 62nd Street Lemon Cake, without her lemon glaze. Plus, I like to rub the lemon zest into the sugar to release the lemony oils (as we do in our lemon meringue tart here). Yes, you can leave the rose out of the raspberry glaze, but I’m telling you it’s not there as perfume. The rose is barely detectable but elevates the glaze perfectly. If you have any leftover cake, try making a layered trifle with it. Pow.
Position a rack to the lower third of the oven, and preheat the oven to to 350°. Generously butter a 12-cup Bundt pan using a brush and soft butter, then dust it lightly and evenly with the fine dry bread crumbs. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, rub the lemon zest into the sugar until the sugar is damp and the aroma of the lemon is released. Sift the sifted flour, baking powder, and salt into another medium bowl and set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until soft on medium-high speed. Add the sugar and lemon zest, as well as the vanilla, and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, scraping the bowl as necessary with a rubber spatula. Reduce the mixer speed to low, and alternately add the dry ingredients and milk in five additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Finish by folding the batter by hand until smooth.
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. The cake takes 50 minutes in my goldtone Nordic Ware bundt. Let the cake stand in the pan for 5 minutes, then cover with a rack and invert. Lift pan from cake, leaving the cake upside down. Brush any excess crumbs off of the cake, then place cake on its rack over a large piece of foil or parchment paper.
Make the glaze. In a food processor or by hand using a mortar and pestle, crush the raspberries to a fine powder. Sift the raspberry powder twice, discarding the seeds each time.
In a medium bowl, whisk the raspberry powder with the confectioner’s sugar. Add the yogurt, holding back a bit on it and adding more as needed to create a thick but pourable consistency. The glaze should drip in a ribbon from the whisk and hold its line briefly on top of the glaze in the bowl. Whisk in the rose water. If the cake is still warm, cover the glaze with plastic wrap and set aside until the cake is completely cooled.
Pour the glaze along the ridges of one small section of the cake. Use a spoon or small knife to spread the glaze down into the ridges and all the way to the bottom of the cake, both inside and out. Repeat this process all the way around the cake.