Cake #5 - Lemon Lemon Loaf

Three things that I really need to do as we go along on this cake project:

1. Take notes. Seems elementary, but I'm not doing it. Stupid.
2. Write up the cakes quickly. Without the aforementioned notes, the length of time between baking and writing is a real problem.
3. Learn a little something about food styling!

So, Cake Number Five is the Lemon Lemon Loaf. If you're paying attention, you might think, "Hmm...I don't remember Mindy's write-up on Cake Four..." Uh, that's because I haven't baked it yet. I will get to it, I swear.

Back to the Lemon Lemon Loaf! I made it for an Open House that we hosted, and it was a perfect sweet companion to quiche and coffee.

This was last week, so here's what I remember:

1. Whoa. That's a lot of lemon zest! 1/4 cup, to be exact. My lemons might have been on the small side as it took five of them to get 1/4 cup.
2. I was extremely happy for a recipe that used my food processor instead of my standing mixer. Silly thing to be excited about, no? It's just that my standing mixer is.so.very.heavy.
3. This recipe makes two loaves of bread. The recipe says that you can freeze one of them, and if we were not having people over, I definitely would have done that.

Speaking of two loaves...this project really points out the deficiencies in my cookware collection. I only have one 9 x 5 x 3 pan. I prepared two additional smaller pans thinking that I would need both of them, but I ended up using the larger of the two. Remarkably, they required the same amount of a baking time.


The finished loaves - aren't they beautiful?What I don't have pictures of:

1. The loaves after I pricked them and poured on the lemon syrup.
2. The loaves after I doused them with the lemon and powdered sugar glaze.
3. The smiles on the happy faces of my taste-testers.

Most commented on how incredibly moist the cake was (a lot of credit probably goes to the sour cream in the recipe), how intense the lemon flavor was (all goes back to that 1/4 cup zest in addition to the 1/4 fresh lemon juice), and that the cake was sweet, but not cloyingly so. I don't think that these cakes need the glaze, they are plenty sweet and rich on their own.

And, the out of the fridge test? Divine with a cup of tea around 10 a.m.