This French lemon cake ni mambo yote (is everything!). I came across it two weeks ago on the blog Dinner a Love Story. I tried it and have since baked it four times in two weeks.
Some lemon oil cake recipes I made in the past for me hit the same notes as lemon mandazis (beignets). And that’s alright, if that is what you are looking for in a cake.
Why
This French lemon cake ticks all the boxes:
- all the ingredients are already in your kitchen
- uses oil not butter (for broke days)
- minimal time—it takes a distracted 10 minutes to combine by hand.
- minimal dishes—although I did use the food processor once because I’d already made pie crust in it.
- high in flavour
- perfect after a meal
- perfect with tea in the afternoon
- cake for breakfast
- easy to transport as a gift, a get-together, a picnic etc
French Lemon Cake
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 Tablespoon finely grated lemon rind/zest/skin
- 3/4 cup yoghurt
- 1/2 cup oil
- 2 eggs
- juice of half a lemon
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
Directions
Preheat oven to 160°C/350°F. Grease and dust a loaf tin with flour; tap out excess.Grate the skin/rind of 1-2 lemons. In a large bowl, using your fingers, rub 3/4 cup sugar with 1 Tablespoon lemon zest/rind until sugar is moist.
The rest goes pretty fast. Into the bowl, pour in the 3/4 cup yoghurt, 1/2 cup oil, 2 beaten eggs and juice of half the lemon. Mix.
The proper thing to do is mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and then combine with the wet ingredients.
But the lazy-and-it-works-just-as-well thing to do is measure and add the dry ingredients directly into the wet ingredients.
Add the 1 1/2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Use a spatula or a wooden spoon and lightly mix until combined. Even though it looks lumpy it is fine.
Pour the cake batter into a greased loaf tin, and bake in the preheated oven. Halfway through the baking time, rotate the tin. It is done when a knife inserted comes out clean.
Cool and enjoy!
Looks and sounds yum, will try it with the rice flour.
Yay! Gluten-free version coming soon 🙂
I tried this recipe over the weekend but Gluten Free version, I substituted Wheat flour with Oat Flour, Rice Flour and Sweet Potato Flour. I used Gelatin as my “gluten” and the result was amazing 🙂 considering it was my first trial.
Thank you for the Recipe. On to the next 🙂
Hey! I tried this recipe again, and yes it is so easy and addictive to make because am thinking of doing it again this week 🙂 So this time I used self raising flour, as I was in the process of incorporating the ingredients. I was like hmmmm this cake will be small and I want it to be a lot, what to do? I added half a cup of flour then it became almost like a dough then I thought to make it wet and return it to a batter state, let me add a quarter cup yogurt; and it came out so well. I loved it for sure!
Thanks for the recipe.
And I tasted it. It was delicious 😋
Awwww muito obrigada chica!