amalfi lemon cake

amalfi lemon cake

• 5 Sept 2022

 

A few weeks ago I saw a video of Jamie Oliver and Gennaro Contaldo making an Amalfi lemon cake. I knew I already had an Amalfi lemon cake recipe bookmarked, so I dug it out and realised the recipes were very similar. I combined the 2 recipes together to come up with this gluten free Amalfi lemon cake.

As the cake is oil based, it doesn't take long to put the cake together. The most time consuming part is cooking the lemon. You're supposed to boil the lemon before pureeing it, but I pierce the lemon a few times before microwaving it for a few minutes which achieves the same effect in way less time. Once the cook has cooled, it's decorated with lashings of whipped cream, some lemon syrup and a few toasted almond flakes.

 

Here's the recipe for which makes an 8 inch/20 cm cake. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup, a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60 g eggs. My oven is a conventional oven so if you have a fan-forced oven you may need to reduce the temperature by 20°C. 

 

Amalfi Lemon Cake - adapted from Delicious magazine 

Ingredients
1 large lemon (preferably seedless)
1 cup (250ml) extra virgin olive oil 
250g almond meal
100g superfine polenta flour, sifted or plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
Pinch salt  

4 eggs
250g caster sugar  

Lemon syrup
1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar
Juice of 2 lemons 

 

To decorate

300mls cream, whisked to stiff peaks 

2 tbs toasted flaked almonds

Method 

Place lemon in a deep saucepan, cover with cold water and place a small plate on top to keep lemon submerged. Bring to a rapid simmer over medium heat. Cook for 20 minutes or until lemon is just soft, topping up water if needed, or microwave the lemon with 1 tbs water in a covered bowl for 3-4 minutes, then drain and cool completely. Cut into quarters and remove seeds. Place in a blender with oil and whiz until smooth and emulsified. Set aside. 

Preheat the oven to 170°C, conventional. Grease and flour a 20cm-round cake pan and line the base with baking paper. Mix together the almond meal, flour, baking powder and salt. Place eggs and sugar in a bowl and whisk to combine, then whisk in lemon puree and the almond meal.

 

Spread into the prepared pan and bake for 55-65 minutes until the top is just firm and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool in pan for 1 hour, then invert onto a wire rack and cool completely. 

Lemon syrup

Combine sugar and juice of 1 1/2 lemons in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a simmer and cook for 4-6 minutes until thickened and starting to caramelise. Cool syrup, then mix in remaining juice of 1/2 lemon until combined. Cool completely to room temperature. 

 

To serve 

Top the cake with cream, drizzle with syrup and decorate with a few flaked almonds.

 

 

I made the cake last weekend and took it to a friends place for dessert and it was a roaring success so I made it a second time to share with my neighbours for Father's Day.

 

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

 

Bye for now,

 

Jillian