The Cooking microsite of The New York Times recently featured a "Lemon-Almond Butter Cake" as its "Recipe of the Day." The cake combines almond cake with lemon curd -- a
novel pairing for me, but one that holds tremendous appeal because I love each of those components separately. Shortly after I saw the recipe on the Times website, my husband sent me a Facebook message asking if I had seen it. In the following days, I was plagued by numerous Times-sponsored posts promoting the recipe that kept popping up in my Facebook feed. So I succumbed to the pressure and made the cake.
I broke up the process over two days, making the lemon curd on the first day. It's a one-step curd you make by cooking lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, eggs, and butter until the mixture thickens. Because this recipe uses whole eggs that are cooked over direct heat, I had a lot of cooked albumen in the curd despite my continuous stirring; I strained it out with a sieve before chilling the curd overnight. The color of the curd was not as deep yellow as curd I've made with yolks only, and it was also not as glossy.
With the curd prepared, it was quick work to put together the cake the following day. You cream together sugar and room temperature butter; add the sifted dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, and salt); and mix in eggs and almond flour. I spread the batter in a greased cheesecake pan with a removable bottom, and used a #60 scoop to drop one-tablespoon dollops of lemon curd around the perimeter and in the center of the cake. The surface of the cake looked like it was covered with egg yolks. The recipe says that you will have "several tablespoons of curd left over," but I had more than enough excess curd to make a second cake -- which is exactly what I ended up doing. I sprinkled on some toasted sliced almonds and sanding sugar before putting the cakes in the oven.
While the cakes were baking, the spots of lemon curd sank into the batter. As a result, the center of the cakes in particular were much lower than the outer perimeter. But if you looked casually at a slice, I don't think it would be obvious that there were dollops of lemon curd in it -- the color of the curd blended in pretty well with the rest of the cake.
This cake is sooo good. The lemon-almond combination is synergistic -- not only do the flavors complement each other, but the pools of cooked curd surrounded by cake have the dense and supermoist texture that is characteristic of desserts made with almond paste. It's the same texture you find in frangipane, the filling in an almond croissant, the middle of an Almond Cloud Cookie, or the center of an Apelsinsnittar -- and it's a texture that I absolutely love. I savored every part of this cake: the center that was mostly lemon; the middle of each slice that was a 50-50 mix of curd and almond cake; the outer perimeter that was straight almond cake; and the crunchy toasted almonds on top.
I was pretty annoyed that I kept seeing sponsored Facebook posts pushing this recipe. But I have to concede that I'm grateful the recipe came to my attention, regardless of the method. This cake is simple but special and deserves its own publicity campaign!
Recipe: "Lemon-Almond Butter Cake" adapted from In the Hands of a Chef by Jody Adams, available from The New York Times.
I broke up the process over two days, making the lemon curd on the first day. It's a one-step curd you make by cooking lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, eggs, and butter until the mixture thickens. Because this recipe uses whole eggs that are cooked over direct heat, I had a lot of cooked albumen in the curd despite my continuous stirring; I strained it out with a sieve before chilling the curd overnight. The color of the curd was not as deep yellow as curd I've made with yolks only, and it was also not as glossy.
With the curd prepared, it was quick work to put together the cake the following day. You cream together sugar and room temperature butter; add the sifted dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, and salt); and mix in eggs and almond flour. I spread the batter in a greased cheesecake pan with a removable bottom, and used a #60 scoop to drop one-tablespoon dollops of lemon curd around the perimeter and in the center of the cake. The surface of the cake looked like it was covered with egg yolks. The recipe says that you will have "several tablespoons of curd left over," but I had more than enough excess curd to make a second cake -- which is exactly what I ended up doing. I sprinkled on some toasted sliced almonds and sanding sugar before putting the cakes in the oven.
This cake is sooo good. The lemon-almond combination is synergistic -- not only do the flavors complement each other, but the pools of cooked curd surrounded by cake have the dense and supermoist texture that is characteristic of desserts made with almond paste. It's the same texture you find in frangipane, the filling in an almond croissant, the middle of an Almond Cloud Cookie, or the center of an Apelsinsnittar -- and it's a texture that I absolutely love. I savored every part of this cake: the center that was mostly lemon; the middle of each slice that was a 50-50 mix of curd and almond cake; the outer perimeter that was straight almond cake; and the crunchy toasted almonds on top.
I was pretty annoyed that I kept seeing sponsored Facebook posts pushing this recipe. But I have to concede that I'm grateful the recipe came to my attention, regardless of the method. This cake is simple but special and deserves its own publicity campaign!
Recipe: "Lemon-Almond Butter Cake" adapted from In the Hands of a Chef by Jody Adams, available from The New York Times.
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