Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Lemon Torte

I know I have been ignoring this blog for quite awhile. I have pictures, I have recipes, but I've just been either very busy and then very lazy to deal with this blog. I will try to catch up over the next month.

I love lemon desserts, I even have a cookbook devoted entirely to lemon desserts though I don't think I have made anything from that particular cookbook. A week ago, friend dropped off some Meyer lemons and I have been trying to decide what to make with them ever since. Something simple but also a recipe that uses a lot of lemon juice. Yesterday I came across this recipe for Lemon Torte on the Baking Bites blog. It is a simple one layer cake that includes ground almonds and then it is topped with a powdered sugar glaze while still warm. I've had a stick of butter sitting out so I was ready to go.

The butter and sugar are creamed together first until fluffy. I was a tablespoon short of butter so I added in a tablespoon of olive oil. I've made this a second time and added 2 Tbsp of olive oil and 6 Tbsp of butter. After the addition of 3 eggs and 1 Tbsp of lemon zest, flour and ground almonds are added, alternating with lemon juice (1/2 cup total). Then it is baked in a springform pan. The powdered sugar and lemon juice glaze is poured on top when the cake is still warm. Removing the sides after adding the glaze allows it to run down the sides.

This cake was very easy to make with a standing mixer though a hand mixer would work just as well. The cake is very moist and full of lemon flavor. I don't know if the addition of olive oil made any difference. I've seen several recipes for orange olive oil cakes which sounds intriguing and so I may play around with this recipe.