Glazed Lemon Cake with Grant K Gibson

The second of two posts featuring my first-ever Guest Star, San Francisco Designer and Blogger (http://www.grantkgibson.blogspot.com/) Mr. Grant K Gibson!

Part Two: Dessert

All you have to say to me is Glazed Lemon Cake, and suddenly it’s not the cake but my eyes that are glazed, and I find need of a tissue to mop unsightly drool. Since Grant and I have a history of sharing many slices of cake together, it seemed only natural to bake one from a classic cook book that we both grew up with: The Silver Palate Cookbook (1979). And as we got down to the business of the actual baking (between giggle fits), we noticed that both our copies of the book were seriously well-loved: splattered with food stains AND fell naturally open to the page with this cake recipe on it!

Grant says he isn’t fond of baking, because he prefers not to measure and he likes to work “loosely” from recipes, while I, on the other hand, love the science and the precision of baking. So our team consisted of him winging it while I drank a cocktail and yelled at him to measure more carefully. Fortunately for us we weren’t making a soufflé, because I fear all the commotion and hilarity in the kitchen would have precluded the effective rising required for that project. This cake is way easier to bake than any soufflé, and probably about a million times yummier. If you love lemon, or even just SUGAR, this cake will delight you. I ate no less than THREE slices that very evening!



Glazed Lemon Cake

½ pound (2 sticks) sweet butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
3 cups unbleached, all purpose flour, sifted
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 tightly packed Tbsp grated lemon zest
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
Lemon Icing (recipe follows)

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a 10-inch tube pan.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Bean in eggs, one at a time, blending well after each addition.
3. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Stir dry ingredients into egg mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Add lemon zest and juice.
4. Pour batter into prepared tube pan. Set on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 1 hour and 5 minutes, or until cake pulls away from sides of pan and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
5. Cool cake in the pan, set on a rack, for 10 minutes. Remove cake from pan and spread on icing at once, while cake is still hot.

Lemon Icing

1 pound confectioners’ sugar
8 Tbsp (1 stick) sweet butter, softened
3 tightly packed Tbsp grated lemon zest
½ cup fresh lemon juice

Cream sugar and butter thoroughly. Mix in lemon zest and juice; spread on warm cake.