Lemon-Almond Ginger Cake

Another weekend to myself, another baking experiment. This time, a lemon-ginger cake inspired by Maida Heatter's too-tempting-to-resist sounding recipe for Best Damn Lemon Cake.

They say one good thing always leads to another. I was drawn to the book when I read, a long time ago, a seriously tempting-sounding 8-hour cheesecake post on one of my favourite blogs. I wanted so badly to try it but sadly my microwave convection doesn't go lower than 150 deg C or beyond 4 hours. Very sad. When I buy my built in oven I am gonna make sure it can bake this cheesecake.

Anyway I changed it up slightly - subbing self-raising flour for the mixture of AP and baking powder, adding ginger to the mix and since I didn't have lemon extract, used lemon juice in place of milk. Also, inspired by this beautiful sugary crust I saw Donna Hay create on one of her Fast, Fresh and Simple episodes, I used some of my golden demerara sugar to make a crust too.

The cake had the most delicate crumbs, very different from say pound cake ones which I am used to. I can't say this justifies the expense of the almonds. But overall, it had a gorgeous flavour and made very nice teatime treat.

Adapted from here.

1 1/2 cups sifted self-raising flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 lb butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup ground almonds
zest from 2 large lemons
1 2-ince knob of fresh ginger, peeled and grated (reserve the juices)

GLAZE
3 tbsp demerara sugar, 3 tbsp granulated sugar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

Directions:

Preheat heat oven to 160 deg C.
Butter a 6-cup loaf pan and dust with cookie or plain bread crumbs (I used oatmeal that I ground up in a food processor).
Melt butter. Rub the lemon zest and ginger gratings into the sugar.
In a mixing bowl, mix butter and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time on low speed.
Then, alternately, add sifted dry ingredients and milk.
Mix in lemon juice. Fold in almonds and lemon zest. Pour into prepared pan.
Bake 60-75 minutes. Two or three minutes before the cake is done, prepare the glaze.

Heat juice and sugars slightly, until the granulated sugar dissolves slightly, but do not boil.

Remove cake from oven and cool in pan 3 minutes.

Brush the hot glaze over the cake in the pan. You should have the sugar crystals clinging to the top of the cake.
Store wrapped in wax paper AND aluminum foil.
 
Set in refrigerator a few days before serving.