Lemon Almond Flour Cake

BIG NEWS! After over 2 months I finally got my kitchen back! It’s not done yet, there are still a lot of things to get done (paint, tile, lighting, hardware, finish some trim) but I have appliances, and a sink which means I have a FUNCTIONING kitchen again!! I can cook and bake again after weeks and weeks of long, boring nights and weekends. It’s been wonderful!

Lara and I have slowly been moving pantry items, small appliances, dishes, and pans upstairs from the (very dusty) basement. It’s so much more fun to move stuff back upstairs than it was to move it all downstairs back in January.

To celebrate this weekend we made a cake for ourselves. Just because! This recipe had come across Lara’s Instagram feed earlier in the week and we both thought it looked simple and lovely. It’s a grain free, dairy free cake. I have fun experimenting with new types of recipes, different ingredients than the typical. This recipe uses all almond flour as the base, gets richness from coconut oil, and is sweetened with maple syrup. A couple of eggs hold it all together, and it is mildly flavored with lemon juice.

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It’s a simple recipe, very easy to throw together without any special equipment. And although the recipe tells you to mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, I have no doubt you can do it all in one bowl.

As I was writing this post I realized that I accidentally used baking powder instead of baking soda. Not sure how big of a difference this might have made in the final product (I would like to try it again soon and use soda instead, but we’ll see if I get to that).

Despite that little snafu, this cake turned out excellently. The almond flour has quite an assertive flavor, so the lemon was not overpowering, I would add a little more if I really wanted lemon flavor, along with a little zest. The texture was “mooshy” but not underbaked, dense but not heavy. These are all good things in my book! I like a “mooshy” cake! I find different (ie more interesting) textures a lot of fun to eat. So many people tell me they have a “texture” thing, and can’t eat anything “weird” in texture. I’m the complete opposite! I like these different textures! I would make this cake again for sure. Recommended!

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Lemon Almond Flour Cake
From Sweet Laurel
Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cups (260 grams) almond flour

  • 1 tsp baking soda

  • 1/2 tsp salt

  • 2 eggs

  • 1/4 cup (56 grams) coconut oil, melted, plus extra for greasing

  • 1/2 cup (156 grams) maple syrup

  • 1/4 cup (56 grams) freshly squeezed lemon juice

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare one 8 inch pan by greasing it with coconut oil, then lining it with a circular piece of parchment paper, cut to fit.

In a bowl, mix together the almond flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In a larger bowl, whisk together the eggs, coconut oil, maple syrup, lemon juice and zest. Slowly add the almond flour mixture and stir until batter is blended well.

Pour the batter into prepared pans and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool completely.

Using a sifter, sift powdered sugar over cooled cake.

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