House Warming


My good friend just moved back to the bay area from Portland, Oregon. She was able to buy a brand new house in the San Bruno area and she had me over for dinner on Saturday. I wanted to bring her something as a thank you for having me over and a congrats for purchasing her first home. I decided to make her lemon cake. I also brought her a nice bottle of wine and a bottle of lavender soap. The recipe I used was from Ina Garten's book Barefoot Contessa Parties.  Dinner was unbelievable! She made cooked salmon, potatoes and two yummy salads. One red onion and strawberry salad and a tomato, avocado, mozzarella salad. Here is the recipe for the Lemon Cake:
1/2 lb of unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
1/3 cup grated lemon zest
3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt 
3/4 cup lemon juice
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups confectioners sugar
3 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350, Grease two 8 1/2 x 4 1/2x 2 1/2 inch loaf pans. 
Cream butter and 2 cups of sugar in electric mixer bowl with paddle attachement for about 5 minutes. With mixer on medium speed, add one egg at a time and then lemon zest. 
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a  bowl.  In another bowl add buttermilk and vanilla and 1/4 cup lemon juice.  Add flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately to batter starting with flour and ending with flour.  
Divide the batter evenly between the two pans.  Bake for 45 - 60 minutes. 
With cake is baking...
combine 1/2 cup g. sugar and 1/2 cup lemon juice in small saucepan until sugar is devolved to make syrup. After cakes are done take out of pans and set on rack to cool. Add syrup to cakes. 
For the glaze combine confectioner's sugar and lemon juice in a bowl and mix with a wire whisk until smooth. Pour over cakes. 
What I did a bit differently:
Instead of buttermilk I added Creme Fresh 
After reading recipe I realized I did not add 1/2 cup of lemon juice to batter but it turned out GREAT! 
Did not put glaze 

1 comment:

liz song mandell said...

Your pictures are getting better! :-) I like the blue background.. hehe
And of course, the cake looks delicious!