Lemon Cake

This cake is from a recipe I found in my mom’s old recipe book. Can I just say first that I LOVE making this cake? It always turns out right. Light and fluffy, golden brown on the outside, sweet and tart from the lemon, and no matter how you drizzle the icing on a bundt cake it always looks so pretty! This cake is such a comfort food for me. I like to eat this cake anytime at all, but it just seems extra good when I’m wrapped up in a warm blanket reading a book when it’s snowing outside. This cake is great all seasons though. The light lemon taste is great for an after dinner dessert in the summer, and yet is comforting and warms your heart in the winter. I recently came across Ina Garten’s lemon cake recipe and noticed how similar these recipes are. In fact, I don’t recall noticing any differences. (I love almost every single recipe I’ve used from Ina Garten. ESPECIALLY the wild mushroom soup. Sooooo good! And I don’t even like mushrooms at all.)

1 cup of unsalted butter, softened*
2 cups of sugar
5 large eggs
1/4 cup of lemon zest
3 cups of flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice
3/4 cup of buttermilk
3/4 tsp of vanilla extract

1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice

1/8 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 cups of icing sugar

Whip together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time until each is well combined. Add the lemon zest at this point.
In a bowl, combine the flour, the baking powder, baking osda, and salt and whisk to combine.
In a measuring cup, mix together the buttermilk, lemon juice, and vanilla.
Add the wet and dry ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture. Beginning and ending with the dry. (I usually do 3 dry, 2 wet.)
Make sure everything is fully mixted together by using a spatula.
Pour into a greased bundt pan and bake in a 350F oven for about 55 minutes, a knife inserted should come out clean.

While the cake is baking, combine the 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of lemon juice in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat until the sugar dissolves.
When the cake comes out of the oven, spoon the syrup over the cake. Use all of it! It’s really good Allow the cake to cool in the pan, if you can’t wait til it’s fully cooled that’s okay. I never can either.

Once the cake is fully cooled, mix together the icing sugar and 1/8 cup of lemon juice, adding more lemon juice to get the right consistency if needed. It should be really thick looking and fall in a ribbon when you drizzle it over itself.
Drizzle this over the cake and let it fall over the sides.

Next step: EAT IT! because it’s so good!

*I sometimes hate when recipes say butter at ‘room temperature.’  Because sometimes your kitchen isn’t warm enough to let the butter actually get soft at room temperature! Like today, I left the butter out for about 5 hours, which is usually enough for me. But because it’s cold out now, the butter was still hard when I went to use it.

Lemon Coconut Chiffon

This is an awesome cake to make. I have made it for my sister’s birthday for the last 3 years in a row because she loves it so much. The cake is so light and fluffy and the lemon curd is tart but sweet at the same time. And the coconut cream icing is so good and brings it all together.

Ingredients:

CAKE LAYERS
2 1/4 cup pastry flour
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 cup of toasted coconut
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup canola oil
7 large eggs, separated
3/4 cup of water
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp coconut extract
3 egg whites
1 tbsp cream of tartar

LEMON CURD
1/3 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
3 egg yolks
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup of butter
1 tsp of lemon zest

COCONUT CREAM ICING
4 tbsp icing sugar
2 tbsp corn starch
1 cup of whipping cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp coconut extract
1 cup sweet flaked coconut
toasted coconut for garnish

TO ASSEMBLE:
For the cake, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl combine the flour, all but 2 tbsp of sugar, coconut, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the centre and all the oil, egg yolks, water, vanilla and coconut extract. Beat until smooth. In a separate bowl, beat the 10 eggwhites until frothy and add the cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Beat in the remaining 2 tbsp of sugar until stiff peaks form. Gently fold in a third of the egg white mixture to the batter, then fold in the remaining two thirds. Pour the batter into an ungreased tube pan. Run a knife through the batter to burst any air bubbles and bake for 1 hour. Make sure you don’t open the open door until at least 50 minutes have passed. Invert the pan and cool.

FOR LEMON CURD
Whis together the lemon juice, eggs, yolk, sugar and zest in a bowl over a pot of gently simmering water. Whisk in the butter and whisk until the curd becomes thick pale and creamy. That should take about 10-15 minutes. Remove the bowl from the heat and cover with plastic wrap, laying it directly over the curd so that a skin doesn’t form on top. Chill the curd in the fridge until you are ready to use it.

FOR COCONUT CREAM
Combine the icing sugar and cornstarch in a small saucepan and gradually stir in 1/4 of the whipping cream. Bring it to a boil, stirring constantly for a few seconds. Scrape that into a small bowl and let it come to room temperature. Be careful not the burn it. Add the vanilla and coconut extract. Whisk the remaining cream to soft peaks. Add the cornstarch mixture, whisking constantly until stiff peaks form. Fold in the coconut.

To assemble the cake, but the cake into three equal layers. Spread 1/2 of the lemon curd on the bottom layer and the other half on the middle layer. Using an offset spatula, spread the coconut cream over the cake and garnish it with a sprinkle of the toasted coconut. So good!

♥ Tara