Moist Lemon Cake

The summer in Seoul is hot and humid. When it is close to 90°F day after day, even eating food is challenging. Sadly, I just lose my appetite. So, I baked a super-duper moist lemon cake to revive my appetite. The following recipe is based on French Lemon Yogurt Cake recipe that I found in Epicurious. I adjusted the sugar and salt amount to my taste. It is very simple to make, but has a tone of citrusy sweet and tangy flavor. Hope you like the lemon cake as much as I do!


MOIST LEMON CAKE
YIELD: one small loaf pan-size cake / COOKING TIME: one hr.


INGREDIENTS

(Dry Ingredients)
+ 1 1/2 cup AP flour
+ 2 tsp baking powder
+ 1/2 tsp salt

(Wet Ingredients)
+ 3/4 cup sugar
+ lemon zest from one lemon
+ 3/4 cup Greek yogurt
+ 1/2 cup vegetable oil
+ 2 eggs




PROCEDURES

1. Mix well all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and salt) in a bowl.



2. In another bowl, mix all the wet ingredients (sugar, lemon zest, Greek yogurt, vegetable oil and eggs). When you zest a lemon, make sure you don't zest the white part of the peeling. Ideally, you can use Microplane®, but if you don't have one, please use vegetable peeler to peel the thin yellow part of the peeling then chop it with a knife.


* Why sugar is mixed with "wet" ingredients?
When you are baking, sometimes the recipe says mix sugar with wet ingredients (e.g. milk or egg) and sometimes it says mix sugar with dry ingredients (e.g. flour). Usually, the former case (with wet ingredients) is when you need soft and fluffy texture from the baked product (e.g. most of cakes). When dissolved sugar in liquid is mixed with flour, the sugar inhibits gluten formation. (Gluten makes the finished product chewy & tough). The latter case (with dry ingredients) is to give the texture and structure to the finished baked product (e.g. most cookies).


3. Fold the dry and wet ingredients well, not to have any lumps of flour. But, please do not over work! Over-working makes the final baked one tough (again, because of gluten).



4. Pour the batter into a baking pan lined with parchment paper.



5. Spread evenly the top of the batter. Please try to spread the batter towards the baking pan. This prevents the center being higher after baking.



6. Tap the baking pan lightly to release any big air pockets in the batter.



7. Bake at preheated 350°F(175°C) oven until the top is golden brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 35-40 minutes.



8. When the cake is cooled down enough, slice and serve with blueberry compote and whipped cream.




BLUEBERRY COMPOTE

Mix 600g frozen blueberry and 1/2cup honey. Over medium heat cook the blueberry mixture. The berries will release water as it heats up, so you don't need to add any water. When the compote looks almost soupy, add lemon juice from one lemon. Lower the heat to low then simmer the compote until the consistency is more watery than jelly but thick enough to spread. Cool down the compote to room temperature and serve it with lemon cake. :)