Italian Lemon Cake

We got home an Italian Lemon Tree planted in a pot last month. Its a small baby with 6 green lemons on the plant. Since then I have been watering that l'il baby every single day waiting for the lemons to turn yellow. I wanted to try so many citrus recipes with these home grown lemons. But more than a month passed and still the lemons didn't turned yellow; the waiting part is so difficult. Until one day when I a lemon turned slightly yellow. That's when I got my first Italian lemon to use for my baking experiments.

It was a very tough to decide on one recipe to make with my very first Italian lemon. I was tempted to try among so many citrus recipes with that one lemon but I kinda decided to make a lemon cake as I had made it at various several occasion and it's been a hit every single time I have made it but somehow never got a chance to feature it on the blog here because I didn't have any pictures of those cakes I had made earlier. 
And being such a expensive Italian lemon tree, I didn't want to take too many chances with it.

I got this Ina Garten's recipe of Lemon Cake from food network and kind of got intrigued to see that the cake gets its lemon flavour from the lemon zest while the lemon syrup is used to infuse the cake with some lemony flavour topped with a lemon glaze. Hence, this cake gets loaded with triple the lemony tangyness and the citrus flavour oozes out on every single bite of this cake very beautifully. The cake was so fresh and the tartness of lemon was just enough to kick all the right flavours in the mouth which lingers for a long time. 

The cake gets a very nice crust from the outside and perfect moistness from the yogurt. This cake is simply perfect for any time of the day.

Lets take you to the recipe

(Print this recipe)

Italian lemon Cake


Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Baking Time: 50 minutes

Source: www.foodnetwork.com
Makes one 9x5 loaf cake

Here's what you would need to make Lemon Cake:

Lemon Cake:

1 1/2 cups/ (175 gms) all purpose flour, sifted

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt 

1 cup/ (240 ml) yogurt

1 1/3 cup/ (200 gms + 65 gms) caster sugar, divided

3 large eggs, at room temperature

2 tsp lemon zest (from 1 large Italian lemon/ 3 small lemons)

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup/ (120 ml) vegetable oil

1/3 cup/ (80 ml) lemon juice

Glaze:

1 cup (115 gms) icing or confectioner's sugar

2 tbsp lemon juice

Here's how you can make it:

Preheat your oven to 180 degree C/ 350 degree F. Grease a 9X5X2 inch loaf pan with butter and dust with flour to form a coating.

• In a bowl, sift all purpose flour, baking powder and salt and whisk it all together to until all dry ingredients come together.
• In another bowl add 1 cup sugar and curd and whisk it until nicely combined.
• Add all the three eggs and vanilla extract to the sugar yogurt mixture and whisk it until all the ingredients combine together.
• Add the dry ingredients to the mixture and combine in the batter using a rubber spatula.
• Add the lemon zest and give it a good stir.
• Add vegetable oil and mix it well.
• Pour the batter in the prepared loaf tin and bake for about 50 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
• While the cake is baking in the oven, combine lemon juice with 1/3 cup of remaining sugar in a heatproof container and heat it over medium flame until the sugar is dissolved and makes a lemony simple syrup. Once the sugar is dissolved, turn the heat off and let the syrup cool to room temperature.
• Once the cake is baked, let the cake cool in the loaf pan kept over a cooling rack for 10 minutes before taking the loaf from pan. Let the loaf cool on the wire rack kept over a baking tray. 
• Once the loaf is warm enough to handle with hands, poke holes on the top layer of the loaf using tooth pick and pour the lemon syrup over the cake. Let the lemon syrup get soaked into the loaf before glazing the top layer with the lemon glaze.

Glaze:

• Sift the icing sugar and add lemon juice and stir it until smooth.
• Pour the glaze on the cake before serving.

Hope you would also enjoy enjoy making this as much as I did!

Happy Baking!