Lemon cake

Last week I had visitors from a distant planet. That distant planet is the Pomeranian region, right in the middle of the Tuchola Forest. My family came to visit. My cousin, with whom, long ago, I couldn’t get through a day without at least a phone call. We’ve been through a lot together, not just in Poland but in far-flung corners of the world too, and nowadays we see or speak to each other fairly rarely.

Olek came with Ania and their two boys, one of whom, I’m proud to say, has quite recently become my godson. A good match, I think, because his energy easily equals his uncle’s in his heyday. Those days are gone, but hopefully not for good (in his uncle’s case, of course ;).

We didn’t have much time, but we did manage to eat what I think was a pretty decent pizza (pizza recipe), from Primitive Kitchen, of course. And we had quite an honest talk. Which I really appreciate.

But of course that wasn’t supposed to be the point. The point was that Ania apparently drops by here sometimes, so I received what you might call an “occasion-appropriate” present. Silicone cake moulds. Not the tiny things I bought at Ikea a while ago, but quite sizeable ones, and just right for the approaching Easter holidays. Moulds shaped like a rabbit, a carrot and what Nina called a “flower”. Though actually, I’ve no idea whether it really is a flower. You can judge for yourselves from the photos.

An occasion is an occasion, but without putting them to work, it would remain just a gesture. At Primitive Kitchen, nobody focuses on gestures. It’s about doing things. So today I encouraged Ninka to work with me. The colours and shapes of the moulds were especially enticing to her. She gave me a good long break by efficiently mixing all the ingredients. And there it was. A fragrant, fairly moist, sweet cake, very much a holiday treat. In other words, the “we’re not worrying about calories” option. My saving grace was that she decided to take the rabbit and flower for herself and her mum, and we only ate the carrot. You can probably guess that the saving grace was that the carrot was the smallest.

Still, if you’re thinking of something simple, whether for Easter or the holidays, you can easily make a simple cake like this (or actually three). As always, I recommend it! You do have to be careful with the moulds, though: as you can see in the photos, we tore off one of the rabbit’s ears while taking it out. Ouch, that must have hurt.

PS

And no suggestive associations, please: the smallest one is definitely a carrot 😛

Recipe facts:

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Baking time: 30 minutes

Baking temperature: 180 degrees Celsius

Serves: a few people

Calories: there’s no point counting calories in cake

Ingredients for Easter lemon cake:

• 3/4 of a block of butter
• a glass of cane sugar (white sugar is fine too)
• 2 hen’s eggs
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon of lime juice
• 3 tablespoons of 12% sour cream
• 1.5 glasses of plain wheat flour 
• 2 level teaspoons of baking powder

Recipe for moist lemon cake:

I chopped the butter into tiny pieces with a knife and put it in a deep bowl. I added the sugar and beat it with a mixer until smooth (actually, Ninka did the mixing :). I added 2 hen’s eggs and kept beating (or rather, Ninka did). Once the mixture was fairly smooth, I added the remaining ingredients: the flour previously mixed with the baking powder, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, a tablespoon of lime juice and 3 tablespoons of sour cream.

I mixed everything thoroughly with the mixer (this time it was me, as Ninka’s little arm was tired), and once I had a fairly thick, smooth mixture, I spooned it into the silicone moulds (to roughly 3/4 of their height, because the cake will rise).

I put the filled moulds into the oven preheated to 180 degrees Celsius and baked them for exactly 30 minutes. Then I took them out and set them aside to cool. Once they had cooled down, I removed the cakes from the moulds. The fragrant and fairly moist Easter cake (or simply dessert cake) is ready. You can decorate it with icing, for example, but we ate it plain because it’s already sweet enough. Enjoy!