Easy, tasty, lemony, beautiful. The texture is a perfect moist cake crumb. It is gluten free and dairy free. This is a good recipe to have in your back pocket.
It is Jacqueline Mallorca’s recipe, reprinted here with permission. Yes, the Jacqueline Mallorca who writes wonderful gluten free cookbooks. Notably the The Wheat-Free Cook Gluten-Free Recipes for Everyone and Gluten-Free Italian Over 150 Irresistible Recipes Without Wheat- from Crostini to Tiramisu.
She also has a website, Gluten Free Expert and blog with more helpful info.
While searching for other things, I found this recipe at the end of an article from the San Francisco Chronicle printed in 2005. It deserves to be brought to light again.
I made this just as written, though I used the zest of the whole lemon. I love fresh lemon.
Supposedly, the glaze is optional. You can simply dust the cake with powdered sugar if you prefer. With the zest of a whole lemon, the cake is only mildly lemon flavored without the glaze. The glaze packs a tangy lemon punch, even without the lemon oil. The glaze isn’t optional to me, and it is so pretty.
This cake could also be made with orange or lime instead of lemon. To my taste buds, orange zest is easy to over do though. I would measure this and use at only a teaspoon, or a tablespoon max. I wouldn’t use the zest of the whole orange. Lime? I love that too, and would add that zest with abandon.
The instructions were very easy to follow. But I never got to the “ribbon stage” beating the eggs. Using a hand held mixer, I beat the eggs by themselves for about 5 minutes. They thickened, increased in volume, and got pale. Then I added the sugar and beat about another 8 minutes. They thickened some more, got paler, and increased in volume again, to at least four times the original size of the whole eggs. But not thick enough to produce ribbons of fluffy egg mixture dripping from the beaters.
Still, it was enough. The recipe worked, and we enjoyed this cake immensely. I shared it with a non gluten-free friend, who shared it with another non gluten-free friend. It is that good.