I love a recipe with ingredients that I typically have at hand. This one gets bonus points because it fulfills my holiday season desire for baked goods but is less guilt-inducing because there is no butter (except for greasing the pan) and minimal sugar involved.
This is a Melissa Clark recipe adapted from Claudia Roden’s book “Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean”. This cake came out with a pudding-like texture for me (and I’m not alone according to the recipe reviews). It reminds me a bit of a Japanese cheesecake from Uncle Tetsu. Seeing as how successfully baking a Japanese-style cheesecake was one of my proudest accomplishments in 2020, I like how this recipe is simple in ingredients and technique.
A Few Tips
- Use a hand mixer. The recipe calls for mixing up ingredients in 2 different bowls, so unless you’re bougie and have 2 KitchenAid bowls for your stand mixer, a hand mixer is the way to go.
- Use parchment paper on the pan. I just greased up the pan and when I flipped the cake on my cooling rack, I lost some parts of the cake to the bottom of my tin.
- Half a lemon for juice is enough. I love a citrus dessert but a whole juiced lemon was tart even for me.
- You can try swapping Greek yogurt out for ricotta for more cream, less tang if that’s your style.
JULIENNE CARROTS 