Little Lemon Cake

Fortune smiled on one of my sisters many moons ago when she met and later married her Sweetie. He is a good man and they love each other dearly and he takes such good and gentle care of her. He looks kind of like a Roman emperor and gets better looking with age. He says that is because of going bald. We just returned from a visit to their beautiful home. It was a great visit, especially meeting their new cat Foxy. We enjoyed the cake and tea. Those beautiful plates and cups are part of a set from his mom. It's a breakfast set and includes egg cups, but makes a great tea set, too.

One of the things I like to do when I visit this family is to bring something baked to go with tea. My sister's Sweetie really appreciates these goodies and I like making something different each time to see if he enjoys it. I know that Natashya enjoys the treats, too, but I often don't know how to let her hubby know how much I appreciate him and how happy he makes her, so this is one way.

This time I brought a small lemon Bundt cake, flavored with Meyer lemons from my own bush. It had an intense yellow color from the farm eggs brilliant egg yolks. One of our neighbors gave me the eggs and they really do taste better than eggs from the store.

This is a simple to make cake that can be stirred together with a wooden spoon. It is a variation on one in the Great British Baking Show cookbook I received for Christmas. They baked theirs in a loaf pan and iced it with a confectioner's sugar icing. I baked mine in that small Bundt pan, used melted margarine instead of olive oil, and did a poke cake style topping, using zest and lemon juice and sugar and spooning it over the top of the skewered cake until it was absorbed. That kept the cake fairly moist and certainly elevated the lemon flavor.

This cake is somewhat moist with a looser crumb than a pound cake. The cake itself isn't too sweet, but with either icing or topping it is sweeter...you can choose to serve it without those if you prefer a less sweet cake. The recipe said that the flavor is better after 24 hours. We had it about 20 hours after it was made and it really was flavorful and delicious! Do try it yourself. I hope you have a kitchen scale for weighing the dry ingredients...I don't know the substitutions to make it cups. The glaze is my own, so I used cups there. Hope it isn't too confusing.

Lemon-Yogurt Small Bundt Cake
A variation of the Greek Lemon-Yoghurt Loaf Cake in
The Great British Bake Off - Great Cakes and Bakes to Make at Home 
Serves 8

150g All-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
50g ground almonds
200g granulated sugar
finely grated zest of one large lemon
3 eggs, room temperature
125 ml yogurt (I used Russian style, they call for Greek style)
125 ml non-dairy margarine or butter, melted & cooled (or use mild olive oil)

Lemon Glaze
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F after you have gathered and measured your ingredients and the butter or margarine has cooled.

Grease and flour a small Bundt cake pan. Set aside.

Put the flour, baking powder, salt and ground almonds into a bowl and whisk to combine. Set aside.

Put the sugar and the lemon zest into a bowl and use clean fingers to rub the zest into the sugar. The mixture will resemble damp sand when you are done. Stir into the flour mixture. Make a well in the center.

Re-use the lemon-sugar bowl to whisk the eggs, then add the yogurt and mix, then the melted butter or margarine or olive oil and whisk to thoroughly combine.

Pour the wet ingredients into the well in the dry ingredients, then stir with a wooden spoon until thoroughly combined.

Scrape the mixture with a spatula into the prepared pan and spread to even the top. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 40 minutes, then check every 5 minutes until well risen and a deep golden brown; a skewer inserted into the widest part should come out clean.

Towards the end of the baking time make the lemon glaze so it's ready when the cake is done. In a small bowl mix the lemon zest, lemon juice and sugar. Stir to dissolve the sugar.

Once the cake is ready, remove from the oven and set on a wire rack. Cool for 5 minutes, then turn out onto the wire rack. Place a plate under the rack to catch any drips. Use a skewer to poke the cake all over, then use a teaspoon to slowly drizzle the glaze over the top of the cake into the skewer holes. Keep going around the cake and drizzling until the glaze is used up. Leave the cake until it is cool and the glaze has set.

To store, wrap well in foil or plastic wrap or store in an airtight container. Eat within 4 days. The flavor and aroma will be even more lemony a day or so after baking.