Wednesday 23 June 2021

Amalfi Lemon Cake

I thought I'd try another olive oil cake, since the chocolate one went down a treat.  This time it's a lemon version.  I love lemons for all sorts of dishes, and always have a couple of these sunshiny fruits in my fridge.  I also have a jar of preserved lemons, and a wee bottle of lemon juice (from the supermarket) in there too.  Lemons are definitely one of my desert island items, along with EV olive oil.  You could use the oil for keeping your skin beautiful on that desert island too :-)

We had a handyman in fixing a door lock when I made this cake.  He mentioned it once or twice, so I felt compelled to offer him a piece.  (That's his hand you see in the photo.)  He gave me a wonderful critique, which seemed like it came from a tv show or food magazine.  He was wonderfully erudite, and full of praise.  He liked the different textures - i.e. the almost crispy crust and rich, tender crumb, along with the pillowy softness of the whipped cream, and the slightly bitter caramelised lemon syrup.  I'm not kidding you!  He was a wonderfully helpful and well-versed critic.


smothered in billowing pillows of whipped cream

(This recipe comes from Delicious magazine)

Serves 8:

ingredients:

Cake batter:

1 medium lemon

1 cup/250 mL EV olive oil

4 large eggs

250g./9 oz caster sugar

300g./3 cups almond meal/ground almonds

75g./1/2 cup self-raising flour, sifted

600 mL/20 fl oz thickened/double cream


Lemon Syrup:


110g./1/2 cup caster sugar

juice of 2 lemons - I ended up with c. 150 mL/5.3 fl oz - which you divide into a 3/4 amount and a 1/4 amount


Method:


First boil up your lemon!  You can do this the night before as I did. Put it in a small but deep saucepan, cover with cold water, whack on a small plate to keep it down, bring to a rapid simmer, and let it boil gently away for 20 minutes till tender - i.e. a small knife will pierce it easily.  Keep checking to see if it needs more water.  Let the lemon cool, then cut into quarters and de-seed if necessary

Spoon it into a blender, add the oil and blitz away till you have a smooth emulsion

Turn your oven to 170C/340F to heat up

Prepare your 20cm/8 inch cake tin by greasing and flouring then adding a layer of baking paper to the base and sides

Break the eggs into a large bowl, then add the sugar and whisk together till well combined

And whisk in the lemon purée, almond meal and the sifted flour

Pour/spoon the batter into your cake tin, smooth it out and bake for 55-65 minutes till the top is golden-brown, and a skewer comes out clean from the centre

Cool in the tin for an hour, then turn out onto a wire rack to get completely cool


For the syrup:


Put the sugar and the 3/4 amount (i.e. juice of 1.5 lemons) of the lemon juice into a small saucepan over medium-low heat

Stir to dissolve the sugar, bring to a simmer and simmer for 6-8 minutes till the syrup is slightly thickened and turning a beautiful golden colour

Let it cool for a bit, then whisk in the rest of the lemon juice (i.e. juice of half a lemon)

Cool the syrup to room temp., whisk the cream to stiff peaks, smother the cooled cake in lovely swirls of cream, then tip the syrup over the cake

Will keep in an airtight container for a few days (as it is Winter here, I actually left the cake out of the fridge tho' I suggest putting it in the fridge if the weather is warm!


Notes:


It really annoys me when a food magazine gives such imprecise measurements for something like lemon juice.  I did a bit of research and various bodies said the average lemon holds 2 tbs or 4 tbs!  Or it could be 90 mils or 130 mils ... and so on, making quite a difference to the recipe ...  I had quite a lot of juice so that's probably why the syrup came out fairly tangy - not that I minded!

My syrup went very thin again when I added the fresh juice after simmering, so I reboiled for 2 minutes!


(BTW, for non-Blogger/Blogspot readers, a heads-up re email subscriptions.  Google in their wisdom have decided to cut off Feedburner as the delivery system for emails about our posts.  So I have registered with Follow.it, a different system.  You may get double emails for one or two posts, or it may go into your junk mail.  I'm hoping with all fingers crossed that it works out okay!)  

And P.S. - it's my birthday today!  Mr P. is taking me on a mini-break for the weekend, but there are Covid cases lurking so we are hoping like heck we manage to get away!  Birthday cake and presents are on the menu anyway.  Lucky me!


there's a lemon simmering away under that saucer!

lemon and EV olive oil emulsion

whisk your eggs and sugar together

add the lemon purée, almond meal and flour

pour the batter into the prepared tin

simmer for 6-8 minutes

simmering till golden and caramelised

slather on the cream

and pour on the syrup

spoon the tangy lemon syrup over the top

the handyman handling a piece



© Sherry M.

58 comments:

  1. Happy Birthday, Sherry! I am too a lemon fan and this cake looks splendid with that thick layer of cream and lemon syrup. Hope everything work smoothly with follow.it.

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    1. thanks angie. all that cream makes it wonderful!

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  2. I am bookmarking this. It sounds and looks fabulous!

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  3. Have a great birthday. Since we are out of synch and today here is tomorrow there, I think I 'm on time. The lemon cake sounds great.

    best... mae at maefood.blogspot.com

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    1. thanks Mae. so far it is being great. just had brekkie out.

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  4. The cake looks and sounds delicious! How nice to have such a well versed food critic to try a sample. Have a very happy birthday Sherry, and I hope all works out for the weekend for you. :)

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    1. he was amazing! and thank you for birthday wishes. fingers crossed re weeekend travel.

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  5. Chocolate or lemon they both look good

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  6. Hehe I'm always giving away cake to people as there's just the two of us and Mr NQN doesn't like cake very much! What a lucky tradie. Have a WONDERFUL Birthday Sherry! You deserve a holiday xxx

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    1. i know what you mean lorraine. we can't eat a whole cake either. and thanks!

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  7. The handyman should have offered you a discount on his work in exchange for such a beautiful and delicious piece of cake, it seems to me! ;)

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  8. Yummm! Everything with lemon is delicious. And Happy Birthday! Thanks for the reminders I keep getting about fixing up Feedburner. I think I will be going with Follow-it and had better get on with it. Well done for doing it.

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    1. thank you! Yes Follow.it were very helpful and fixed it all up for me -- thank heavens!

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  9. Yummm! I love anything with lemon. Happy birthday! I hope you had a nice cake for that too. And thanks for reminders about Follow-it. That's what I plan to use so I had better get on with it. I did have another in mind as well but I think Follow-it seems the best.

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    1. hi again. Yes follow.it made it very simple 'cos they did it for me :-)

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    2. sorry about the double up. When I responded first time I realised I was signed in with different Google id and changed id rather than confirming comment.

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    3. no worries. the more the merrier :)

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  10. Happy Birthday dear Sherry! Gee these birthdays come around quick don't they haha? Delicious recipe - love all things lemons. Have fun away - stay safe and warm xox

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  11. Happy birthday Sherry. This cake has so many qualities I love about cakes, lemon, almond meal, the sauce, cream etc. Yum. I am always sharing cake too.Looks like you've made the plunge to follow.it. Great. So do you recommend I contact the follow.it people for some help? Have a great weekend.

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    1. thank you pauline! it is a great cake. Yep get on to Follow.it. They did it all for me, thank heavens!

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  12. Memories of our 2 week trip to Italy which included the Amalfi coast. Love citrus desserts - might have added (or substituted limoncello)

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    1. hi judi
      i'd love to go to the Amalfi coast and see all the lemon groves ...

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  13. Happy birthday, Sherry!

    I think I might like to try the lemon cake even more than I would the chocolate.

    And, I, too, get frustrated with imprecise directions for baking. Precision is so important.

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    1. thanks Deb. I agree about the lemon cake; it was fab. Yes isn't it annoying about imprecise instructions? Grrrr

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  14. Happy Birthday! And such a great cake to celebrate. You'll be glad to know I got the email from Follow.It asking whether I wanted to opt in to continue receiving emails. Of course I did! I really need to do something about my email subscribers -- just so disgusted with Blogger that I've delayed (so many issues with them in the past couple of years; should really change platforms but that takes more work than I really want to do, given I'm a very casual blogger). Anyway, neat recipe -- thanks.

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    1. thank you KR. THat's good about Follow.it. I didn't realise they would send out opt-in emails... Yes get them to fix up your blog for you. They did all the work for me! I just hope it is all okay in july when feedburner quits doing its stuff. Yes i don't want to have to swap to wordpress either but i fear that Blogger is going the way of the dodo pretty soon!

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  15. First of all, happy birthday, Sherry. I hope you are having this as a birthday cake because it sounds absolutely delicious! I may have to give this one a try -- thanks for sharing the recipe.

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    1. thanks jeanie. it was a great day. hubby bought me a great cake so we had that for my birthday. this cake is long gone:)

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  16. First of all, happy birthday Sherry - all the best! Secondly, this cake looks and sounds delightful. I love oil-based cakes as the texture is lighter than with butter. And of course all other flavours and textures are nice too! Now, shall we eat the cake? :)

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    1. thanks muchly Ben. I had a lovely day. Cake is all gone :-)

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  17. Happy Birthday and my address did make the jump. I think I would have been dropping really broad hints too if I had been nearby when you created this cake.

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    1. that's great. thanks! Yep it was a fab cake - worth hinting about :-)

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  18. Ah, happy birthday, Sherry - although I might be a day late at this point! Either way, I do hope you and Mr. P can make that getaway. Switching gears, this cake sounds amazing. I really do love lemon flavored desserts - in fact, I just made one here yesterday. However, the syrup takes this one to the next level! Oh, to be a handyman in your house...

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    1. thanks much david. we had a great weekend away and got back safely thru the border. yep this is a good cake!

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  19. Happy birthday dear ! We celebrate my mom's birthday tomorrow :-) Although I made chocolate one for her ( her favourite ) this is my keeper definitely ! Thank you !

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    1. thanks davorka. i had a lovely one and a great weekend away tho glad to be home safely. this cake is worth a go.

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  20. Gosh, that cake is rich.

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  21. Oh my gosh Sherry this looks so delicious, and it couldn't have come at a better time for me to read and see this post of yours. My sister in law has just given me a heap of lemons off her lemon tree and I've been trying to work out what to do with them so they don't go to waste. I posted a picture of them on Instagram. I think I may just have to make this. It looks so yum!

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    1. that's great Min. at least you can use up 3 lemons for this cake. It is a great cake i have to say...

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  22. I was thinking the same thing yesterday about lemons. The lemons I have from Costco are really very big.

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    1. yes you'd think a food magazine would know better! a lemon can be of so many sizes and amounts of juice :)

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  23. Happy Birthday dear Sherry! The cake looks yummy.
    Amalia
    xo

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    1. thanks so much amalia. i appreciate your thought.

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  24. I pinned this to a couple of my Pinterest boards and will be making this the next time we have friends over for dinner. I'm with you about all things lemon. As a matter of fact our tastes are very similar except for you not liking pasta. 😊

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    1. that's great karen. yep i must be the only one in the world who doesn't like pasta. i mean i eat it now and then, but it's just not a fave thing to eat.

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  25. I like what you paid for your birthday cake! It’s very similar to a citrus almond cake I make, but I think I like the sound of the tart lemon, especially with the syrup! Love that you gave some to your handyman, and that he ended up being so helpful. Have you ever seen the miniseries on PBS or BBC called “Posh Nosh”? Quite funny, and there’s one called “architect’s fish and chips“ where the builder sounds very similar to your handyman.

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    1. that syrup was divine David. Yep i've seen posh nosh indeed. Love richard e. grant!

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  26. Happy Belated Birthday - I know you got to go on your weekend away but I hope you got to have your cake and eat it too! I love baking with olive oil and lemons so this sounds right up my eat street and everyone needs a taste tester like that handyman!

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    1. thanks sammie. oh yes he was a fab handymand and a fab cake tester :)

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  27. thanks for another olive oil cake recipe. Like the chocolate one, this looks delicious. I love lemon cake so any version is exciting.

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  28. My husband would love this so much.

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