Moist Lemon Cake

Or a million tries to make the perfect cake

Before my husband and I had a baby, we traveled a lot and always chose the same airline. And on board, as expected, they gave lunch and a little treat, which we always waited for and enjoyed like children. It was a fantastic tiny lemon cake - slightly sour, moist, and not cloyingly sweet. Perhaps all the magic was in anticipation of adventure on the way there and in the joy of returning home on the way back. But at that particular moment, we felt the beginning of our holidays.

Every time I returned home, a quest began: find the perfectly moist lemon cake recipe or bake it myself. And every time I failed: sometimes it was too dry, sometimes not lemony enough, sometimes too sweet. Every time I got upset and my passion disappeared until the next flight.

But one day I managed to bake our perfectly moist lemon cake. Then we seemed to eat these cakes for several weeks in a row, it was fun. In the end, it seemed that the lemons would crawl out of our ears, and the nearest shop ran out of condensed milk.

Of course, I wrote down the recipe in my notes and... forgot about it, no travel - no plane cakes. But the other day I was cleaning my phone and found this recipe, and now I really want to share it with you!

And if you want to try other lemony sweets - try:

• lemon muffins with poppy seeds,
• lemon cake roll.

Ingredients:

Cake:

• 1 cup (120 g) flour,
• ½ cup (50 g) almond flour,
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder,
• 2 tbsp lemon zest (two lemons),
• ½ cup (100 g) sugar,
• ½ tsp salt,
• ½ cup (110 g) room temperature butter,
• 2 eggs,
• 2 tbsp lemon juice (about half a lemon),
• ½ cup (150 g) condensed milk.

Lemon impregnation:

• ½ cup (100 ml) lemon juice (about one and a half lemon),
• 4 tbsp (30 g) powdered sugar.

Lemon glaze:

• 1 cup (125 g) powdered sugar,
• 2 tbsp lemon juice (you may need a little more or a little less).

Additionally:

Butter for greasing a cake pan.

Process:

Oven:

Preheat the oven to 160 °C.

Cake pan:

Grease the cake pan with butter and line it with baking paper.

Dough:

• with your fingertips rub the lemon zest with sugar,

• add the rest of the dry ingredients to the sugar mixture - flour, almond flour, salt and baking powder,
• mix the dry ingredients,

• in a separate bowl, mix the room temperature butter with the eggs; if you use a mixer, do it on the high speed for a few minutes; the mix can be a bit lumpy if the butter was too cold, don't worry about it,
• with mixer running, slowly pour in the condensed milk to the butter mix,
• add lemon juice to the butter mixture and whisk it,
• add dry ingredients into the moist one and mix gently until smooth.

Baking:

• pour the dough in a greased, paper-lined cake pan filling about three-quarters full,

• place the cake in the oven preheated to 160 ºC,
• bake for 40-55 minutes, the time depends on the size and depth of the cake pan: a toothpick inserted in the center should come out almost dry, there may be cake crumbs on it,
  if the cake starts to brown too fast - cover it with foil;
• as soon as the cake is ready, remove it from the oven, but don’t immediately take it out of the cake pan.

Impregnation:

• bring half a cup of lemon juice to a boil,
• dissolve 4 tbsp of powdered sugar in lemon juice,
• remove the cake from the pan along with the baking paper,
  it should take you about 10 minutes to prepare the impregnation, so at that point, the cake should still be hot;
• brush the cake with lemon syrup.

Lemon glaze:

• be sure the cake is cooled completely before applying a lemon glaze, don’t prepare the glaze ahead, or it’ll harden; it will take about 2 hours for the cake to cool completely,
• slowly add the lemon juice, one teaspoon at a time, to the 125g of powdered sugar so that the glaze is thick enough - it shouldn’t drip off the cake or shine through,
• pour the glaze over the cake and let it set up on the cake for 2 hours before starting a tea party!