Lemon Sheet Cake #TheCakeSliceBakers

A little late to the party, but summer is never an easy time to find the right time to bake. As usual, we have a project for the house going on. This July it's a refurbishment of the back deck, which is a three level affair connected by steps. Sweetie and I built it together over 25 years ago, so it has aged enough to no longer be beautiful, nor totally safe.

Today we stopped early enough that I whipped up the Lemon Sheet Cake from The Perfect Cake cookbook (no 'buttermilk' in the title since I didn't use buttermilk). Except for using non-dairy margarine and soy creamer as substitutes for the butter and buttermilk, I followed the recipe exactly. Those substitutions are necessary if I'm going to eat any of the cake, and I soooo enjoyed this cake that I'm glad I did.

This cake is tender, moist and has a heavenly true lemon flavor. The crumb is fairly tight and the crust delicate. I love the lemon sugar glaze even though it does make the cake pretty sweet. The sprinkle of lemon zest enriched granulated sugar over the glaze adds just the right touch of crunch, and even more lemon appeal and sweetness.

Allow some time at the beginning to zest and juice the lemons...takes 5-10 minutes, but is well worth the effort. Otherwise this is a fairly basic cake recipe where you cream the butter with the sugar that has been enriched with the lemon zest, then you add eggs, then the dry ingredients in three parts and the wet ingredients in two parts, with the dry added last. Using cake flour is wonderful since it makes the cake delicate and tender.

I know that quite a few Cake Slice Bakers also make this recipe. Who can blame them? This cake if just fine by itself and even better with a few ripe strawberries or raspberries or blackberries or blueberries and since this is berry season that's easy to do. I added a few  strawberries from our garden and it was the perfect summer treat with the luscious lemon cake!

Do visit the other Cake Slice Bakers to see how their cakes turned out. There is at least on who did the cake pops and one who did the almond meringue layers with fruit. No recipe, but do consider buying the book because every recipe so far has been flawless.

Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through.  This year it is The Perfect Cake from America's Test Kitchen #atkcake.  We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!

Follow our Facebook,  Instagram, and  Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the thumbnail pictures below to take you to each of our cakes, or visit our blog where the links are updated each month. If you are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.

The Cake Slice Bakers are baking from a new book "The Perfect Cake" from America's Test Kitchen.

Our choices this month are...

1. Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake
2. Apricot-Almond Meringue Cake
3. Refined Strawberry Shortcake
4. Party Cake Pops

Visit our members to see what cake choice they baked up! 

An InLinkz Link-up

Buttermilk and Cherries

We are in that season where much of the fruit available in the markets are imported, except for apples and pears. Pears are often not ripe and I made apple crisp last time this friend was over for dinner, so yesterday I decided to make a dessert with things on hand. I had some buttermilk, eggs, and butter in the fridge and a jar of pitted sweet dark cherries in the pantry.

 A short amount of time on the internet led me to a lovely recipe for a moist, fluffy, tender single layer cake with cherries. Well, the recipe actually used raspberries, but I knew cherries would work well with the cake. I also used almond extract instead of vanilla because almond flavor brings out the cherry flavor so well and these were not fresh fruit, so could use that bit of help. Otherwise I mostly followed the recipe and we enjoyed the cake after dinner. It was not too much, and not too little...just right.

Cherry Buttermilk Cake
based on Raspberry Buttermilk Cake in
Gourmet, June 2009, by Melissa Roberts

Simple, tender buttermilk cake topped with a nice, sugary crunch and enriched with cherries

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 large egg, room temperature

1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk, room temperature

1 cup pitted cherries (I used some that had been canned in a jar and drained off the juice used to pack them, but fresh cherries would be even better), drained

1 tablespoon soft butter and 3 tablespoons sugar for the pan

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar, preferably sanding sugar, for the topping

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F, with rack in the middle. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9-inch cake pan, then coat with the sugar, shaking out any excess into the sink. Set aside.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cardamom.

Beat butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes, then beat in the almond extract. Add egg and beat well.

At low speed, beat in 1/2 of the flour mixture, the buttermilk, then the rest of the flour mixture, beating only until combined each time.

Spoon batter into prepared pan, smoothing top. Scatter the drained cherries evenly over the top. Sprinkle top with the sanding sugar. Bake in preheated oven for 25 - 30 minutes, or until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool in the pan 10 minutes, then run a knife blade around the sides of the pan to loosen the cake and turn it out onto a rack. Invert onto a serving plate and let cool 10 - 15 minutes more. Cherries will have sunk to the bottom of the cake, and the top will be crunchy with sugar.

Serves 8