Lemon Cake
Ingredients
- 420 g Flour (Cake) (low gluten flour, 3 cups)
- 1/2 T baking powder
- 1 t baking soda
- 1 t ground ginger
- 1/2 t salt - table
- 4 eggs (large, separated, at room temperature)
- 1/4 t cream of tartar
- 170 g butter (unsalted) (3/4 cup)
- 440 g sugar - white (2 cups)
- 2 T fresh lemon juice
- 2 T fresh lemon zest
- 1 t vanilla extract
- 4/3 c buttermilk (316mL; 1 1/3 cups)
Method
1. Preheat oven to 350F/Gas 4. Line a 9"x3" round cake pan with baking paper; set aside.
2. In large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, and salt.
3. In another bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until stiff peaks form. Set aside.
4. In another large bowl, beat butter and sugar at medium speed 2 minutes, until fluffy. Beat in egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each. Beat in lemon juice, zest, and vanilla. At low speed, beat in flour mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture (about 4 flour additions and 3 buttermilk additions). Beat just until blended.
5. With a rubber spatula, gently fold egg white mixture, in thirds, into batter. Spread batter in prepared pan.
6. Bake 70 to 80 minutes, until cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes, then invert onto rack. Cool completely before filling and frosting as desired.
Notes
SJ Note 27 Jan 2015: Tasty! Definitely needed the lemon zest, which wasn't in the original recipe - it seems to rely on the filling and frosting for the lemon flavor, but I needed a lemon cake that would be lemony without that this time, and now it is, so: mission accomplished!
Originally bundled together with this lemon frosting recipe: http://myst.starforge.co.uk/index.cgi?op=edit&block=recipemanage&id=789