Last week after marathon training, someone was giving away lemons from their tree. I was eating a banana and drinking Gatorade so lemons seemed kind of disgusting after a 16 mile run. I took a few anyway and I’m so glad I did.
Later, I kept going over what I could make with them; lemon curd, lemon muffins, lemon cake. I’ve been making a cake a week to try to go through my gluten-free flour left over from my baking business. I found a recipe on the Food Network from the Barefoot Contessa for Lemon Yogurt Cake.
My gluten-free version was more like pound cake, but it was still really good. One of my pet peeves with lemon flavored baked goods is that I always want them to be more lemony. Not so with this recipe. There is lemon in the cake. There’s lemon in the sauce that goes over the cake. And there’s lemon in the glaze that goes over that. There was plenty of lemon flavor and the fresh lemons made it even better.
I didn’t change much for this recipe, just the flours and I added a little more vanilla, and, or course, xantham gum. Oh, and I used lowfat yogurt because I couldn’t find any whole milk yogurt at Trader Joe’s.
Enjoy!
Gluten-Free Lemon Pound Cake
Cake:
1 cup gluten-free flour mix (King Arthur Gluten-Free Multipurpose flour or see below*)
½ cup brown rice flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon xantham gum
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup plain lowfat yogurt
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup canola oil
Lemon sauce:
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
Lemon glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350°. Spray an 8 ½ by 4 ¼ by 2 ½ inch loaf pan with canola oil spray.
Sift the flours, baking powder, xantham gum, and salt in a bowl. Whisk together the yogurt, sugar, eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla. Mix in the flour alternating with the oil. Mix until combined.
Pour into baking pan and bake for about 45 minutes or until a knife placed in the center of the cake comes out clean.
While the cake is baking, make the lemon sauce. Heat the sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan until the sugar melts and the sauce is clear. Don’t overcook. Set aside.
>When the cake is done, let it cool for about 10 minutes. Take it out of the pan and place on a cooling rack with a cookie sheet or plate underneath (I used parchment to hold the cake in my hand as I turned it over and then flipped it onto the cooling rack.) Pour the lemon sauce over the warm cake.
Let the cake cool. Mix together the lemon juice and powdered sugar until there are no lumps. Once the cake is cooled, pour the glaze over the cake.
