Step by step

Method

6 steps

1. 1

   I have absolutely no patience to measure lemon zest in 1/3 cups. Is it packed? Loose? Who knows. It takes me 5 to 6 lemons to get the 1 cup of lemon juice I need for this recipe with an electric juicer (pictured is this one) (you might need 6 to 7 by hand, and of course, depending on the size and juiciness of your lemons). Before I juice them, I use a microplane to remove the zest. You might come up a little short of 1/3 cup zest but you’ll still have an abundance of lemon flavor in you cake, especially if you…

2. 2

   Zest the lemons right into the 2 cups sugar used for the cake. Use your fingertips to rub the lemon zest into the sugar, which helps release the most oils and flavor, and break the zest down. Use the sugar as directed in the recipe.

3. 3

   I do not use extra-large eggs because I never buy extra-large eggs. The way I see is it that there are 4 to 5 extra-large eggs or 5 large ones in 1 cup of eggs, so unless a recipe calls for more than 5 or more extra-large eggs, I don’t bother adding an additional large egg to compensate for the change in volume. In short: I use 4 large eggs here.

4. 4

   I add the salt with the butter because I think the sooner you amp up the butter flavor, the better.

5. 5

   I skip the vanilla extract. To me, this is a pure and wonderful lemon cake and vanilla is either barely noticeable or when it is, it gets in the way.

6. 6

   I somewhat one-bowl this recipe: I don’t pre-mix the wet ingredients and instead of pre-mixing the dry ingredients, I do it my own way. Where the recipe says “Add flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately…” for the first dry addition, I add the first cup flour, all of the baking powder, and all of the baking soda (the salt, as I mentioned, went in with the butter) and mix it well, a bit more thoroughly you would normally mix flour in. Scrape the bowl down. For the first liquid addition, I add 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/4 cup buttermilk. Mix it and scrape down the bowl. For the second dry addition, I add the second cup of flour, and mix it gently. For the second wet addition, I add the remaining (1/2 cup) buttermilk, and mix it gently. The third and final dry addition is the last cup of flour. I mix it gently and scrape down the bowl. Voila! You’re done and you’ve dirtied a lot fewer bowls.