Sunday, January 31, 2010

Meyer lemon and poppy seed cake

 There are some great combinations of flavors complementing each other so well, that I can never think of only one of them, they always have to be in pairs. Like lemon and poppy seed, cranberry and orange, lavender with vanilla, or rosemary with sage. It's simply impossible to resist them in freshly baked muffins, cakes or breads. Wanting to sweeten up those long, wintery days I recently made a meyer lemon and poppy seed cake but I still can't tell if it's worth of failing a drug test for. It tasted pretty good, had great texture but we thought it should have been a tad more moist. Any thoughts on how to achieve that???

shopping list:
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 8 large egg yolks
  • 1 large whole egg
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest (from 2 lemons)
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup cornstarch
  • pinch of salt
  • 2 sticks of unsalted butter, melted and cooled
  • 1/2 cup of poppy seeds
Preheat the oven to 325°F Butter and flour an 8-inch fluted Bundt or tube pan generously, I'm not so "high tech" so I used regular cake pan. Butter the dull side of a 10-inch piece of foil.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk, beat the sugar with the egg yolks and whole egg at medium-high speed until the mixture is pale yellow and very fluffy, about 8 minutes. Beat in the lemon zest. Sift the flour and cornstarch over the egg mixture and fold in along with the pinch of salt with a rubber spatula. At medium speed, beat in the butter, then beat in the poppy seeds.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and cover tightly with the buttered foil. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the cake pulls away from the side of the pan and a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove the foil and let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes. Invert the cake onto the rack and let cool completely before serving, at least 30 minutes.

original recipe by Kurt Gutenbrunner via SmittenKitchen
                                                                               
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Posted by M. at 10:33 PM
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7 comments:

  1. That's very delicious cake there!

    As for your question on how to make this cake more moist... I believe that Bundt Pan could have actually been your best friend as that way cake wraps around the center of the pan. What this does is to add support to the structure of the cake itself, therefore you could use less of the eggs and and flower but add butter and sugar, which should increase moistness of the cake itself.

    Keep up the good work - really enjoying reading the blog. It's fun! :)

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  2. I made this recipe in a bundt pan and also found it insufficiently moist. Next time I will shorten the cooking time, which should help -- I think it just got dried out from too long in the oven, even though I pulled it out 5 minutes early (but after the toothpick came out clean, nonetheless -- should've checked sooner).

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  3. It is still a great recipe, I think it's worth giving it another try,I guess I will invest in a bundt pan and use your suggestion about shortening the cooking time.

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  4. I find that replacing flour with some almond meal and adding yoghurt always works for me...!

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  5. A perfect combo! That cake must taste wonderful!

    Cheers,

    Rosa

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  6. If you want to make it more moist add some ground almnods - I think Americans call them almond meal. That will make any cake better!

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  7. Rose, thank you, I'll try it next time :)

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heck yeah, say what you think!

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