When Life Gives You Lemons, Let Them Eat Cake!

A friend of mine is on a personal quest to find the best lemon cake ever. I have decided to help her with her obsession. Since she wasn't more specific about what type of cake (only that it must be lemon, there are two here for consideration)

Lemon Cake

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs, at room temperature

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk

Grated zest of 2 large lemons

Juice of 1 large lemon (about 2 1/2 tablespoons)

For the Glaze:

2 cups confectioner’s sugar (sifted)

Juice of 1 large lemon (about 2 1/2 tablespoons)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Grease a 10-inch Bundt pan, set aside. Sift flour, baking soda, and salt into a small bowl.

Use a wooden spoon to cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until fluffy and pale. Add eggs, one at a time, beat well after each addition, be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Gently fold in a third of the flour mixture with the creamed sugar, then half of the buttermilk alternate until all ingredients have been blended in. Fold in the zest and juice.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 mins. Or until a toothpick comes away clean. Let cool on a wire rack

Make the glaze by adding the lemon juice to the sugar, beat vigorously to dissolve sugar. The glaze should be thick but pourable. You can add 2 tablespoons sugar at a time to thicken if needed.

After the cake has cooled 10 minutes, invert onto the wire rack set over a baking sheet. Spoon the glaze over hot cake and allow to cool completely before cutting.

Lemon Chiffon Cake

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/3 cups plain cake flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

7 large eggs, 2 left whole 5 separated and brought to room temperature

2/3 cup water

1/2 cups vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

zest of 2 large lemons

2 tablespoons lemon juice.

Heat oven to 325F

Whisk first 4 ingredients together in a 4 quart or larger bowl. Whisk in the two whole eggs and 5 egg yolks, water, oil and vanilla. Add the zest and lemon juice and whisk until well blended.

Beat the egg whites for 1 minute at a low speed until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and slowly increase the mixer speed to medium high. you want the whites to be thick and stiff, this takes 10 minutes with a hand held mixer. Fold the whites into the batter, smearing any blobs that don’t ant to integrate into the batter.

Pour batter into an ungreased 9 inch tube pan. Then rap the pan on the counter top at least 5 times to rupture any air pockets.

Bake 55-65 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Hang cake upside down to cool. If you can’t hang it, place it upside down on a bottle. allow to cool two hours.

Glaze for the Chiffon cake

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

4-5 tablespoons spoons lemon juice

2 cups sifted confectioner’s sugar

beat together. let glaze stand 1 minute then test on cake, if cake tries to rip thin glaze out with 1 tables juice.