Lemon Cake

It's been a while since I've had time to post anything new - my son recently learned to crawl and I've been chasing him constantly. But he's asleep now (THANK GOD) so I'm going to try to catch up tonight.

I've baked quite a few things since I last wrote. We'll start with the oldest, and go from there.

This first post is going to be Lemon Cake. I made it in two loaf pans, so we kept one and sent the other to his boss. The blog from which I pulled this recipe from is one I discovered recently and promptly fell in love with. Go pay her a visit at the Smitten Kitchen. The recipe is adapted from one by Ina Garten, whom I had never heard of before this instance, but I can say with assurance that woman definitely knows what's up. I am not generally a fan of lemon anything, but this cake was AWESOME.

The recipe gives the options of baking two loaves or one bundt, and as I mentioned previously, I chose the former. The plan was to decorate my husband's boss's cake with sliced lemons, to make it pretty. Except I forgot to do that. Next time...

I squeezed all my lemon juice myself and grated the peels with a horrible grater that I have. I made a mental note to buy a new one, but I forgot and was reminded when I made key lime pie bars for a Fourth of July party - that recipe will be up soon. :)

I did not have parchment paper, so I merely sprayed the bottom of the loaf pan generously with PAM. I should also mention that I do not have two loaf pans, so I split the batter in two and used the same pan twice.

Sifting together the dry ingredients took time, but it was definitely worth it. The cake turned out very light and fluffy.

Now, after the cake comes out, the recipe instructs you to wait ten minutes before pouring on the lemon syrup. However, I had the foresight to read the blog's comments, and several of them suggested pouring it on immediately, which I did. It soaked up the syrup very nicely and left no soggy areas. After letting it cool, I then poured on the glaze.

So lovely.

The glaze was an excellent complement to the cake. The cake was sweet, while the glaze brought in the tart lemony flavor often left desired in citrus desserts. And as I said earlier, the cake itself was light, so you could eat more than one piece and not feel like a fat pile of lard. I mean, if you wanted to. I wouldn't know anything about that. ;)



Smitten kitchen, indeed.