This recipe is still a work in progress, but I think I’m getting close to nailing it. Right now, my crumb structure is still a little more holey than I would like – and I’m not sure if those holes are caused by air trapped while I’m panning the batter or by tunneling caused by over-mixing. Next step will be to swirl the batter with a skewer and tap the pans lightly on the counter to see if I can bring up any bubbles. If that doesn’t work, then I know over-mixing is the culprit!
High-Ratio Lemon Cake
Makes 2 8 inch cakes
This recipe leaves you with a lot of unused egg whites. Personally, I save them and make Italian merengue buttercream to frost the cake, but you can also turn them into omelets, or merengue cookies, or even angel food cake if you like.
397 g granulated sugar
5 lemons, zest only
377 g cake flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
170 g buttermilk, room temperature
3 ea whole eggs, room temperature
6 egg yolks, room temperature
1 1/2 t vanilla extract
227 g (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
Preheat your oven to 350°F (325°F if you’re using convection). Spray the sides of 2 8″ round cake pans with cooking spray, and line the bottom with parchment.
In a food processor fitted with a steel blade, pulse together the lemon zest and sugar until the sugar turns light yellow and begins to look damp.
In a medium bowl, sift together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk in the lemon sugar.
Whisk together the buttermilk, eggs, egg yolks, and vanilla. Set aside.
At this point, you are about to combine all your dry ingredients with the butter, so it is very important to make sure your butter is very soft, but not melted.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine butter, all of the dry ingredients, and 1/2 of the wet ingredient mixture on medium speed for 3 minutes. On my KitchenAid, I use setting 2. And because this can get a little messy, I find it helpful to wrap a towel over the bowl to help contain some of the loose flour.
Scrape down the bowl, then add 1/2 of the remaining wet ingredients. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes, before scraping down the bowl and adding the remaining wet mixture. Beat for a final 2 minutes on medium speed.
Divide the batter evenly into the two prepared pans and bake until the cakes are golden brown and spring back when pressed lightly in the center, 34-40 minutes.
Cool cakes in the pans for 10 minutes before unmolding. If you like, you can brush the cakes with a 50/50 mixture of lemon juice and simple syrup before frosting to amp up the lemon flavor.
Jessica Norton 