Piece of Cake

So I flaked out on making lemon meringue pie yesterday and chose to make lemon cake instead.

For the recipe I turned to Ina Garten because, as mentioned before, she never fails me and her recipes are the epitome of simplicity.

To give you an idea of how simple this is, the hardest thing about it was grating the zest of four lemons (I halved the recipe, by the way). All the ingredients were at hand, except for buttermilk. But that little hitch was easy to address. I just made my own buttermilk substitute.

The cake came out crumby on top, moist in the middle and dense overall. The glaze made of lemon juice and confectioner's sugar married the tart with the sweet so splendidly. If we forget blunders like burning the lemon syrup and using the wrong pan, the cake itself was actually a success. I was happy to hear my daughter's little squeaks of delight while polishing off two squares as soon as she got home from school.

This recipe is definitely going into the special recipe box I blogged about here.

Click on the links below for the recipes:

• Ina Garten's Lemon Cake
• Buttermilk Substitute