You would think that after making a cake for two days, I would have chosen to do the other option in our Gutsy Cook Club menu – the Lamb Kebabs, right?

Unfortunately, having a bunch of kids running around the house zaps you of all types of energy that you need to have in order to get into a car and hunt down lamb. Also, making MORE food is not a good option when you have a refrigerator full of leftover party food.

I’m a sticker for throwing out unused food. If I’m making it, we are eating it. So, the Lamb Kebabs were put to bed, never to be heard again (until the summer when we fire up the grill outside – promise!).

So, I chose to make the Sticky Lemon Cake, which was a hit even before it was made, especially with Tom, who loves all things lemony. Do you remember how ga-ga he went with the Lemon Meringue Cake or how he died with the Baby Lemon Cheesecakes. And let’s not forget the time-consuming Lemon Canadian Crown cake. In his mind, if it involves squeezing a lemon or lime, he is all over it. We can place this cake right up there in the ever-growing lemon collection.

It’s not a difficult cake to make; it's your standard creaming of butter and sugar with lemon zest, then the addition of the eggs and yolk, followed by the dry ingredients and the yogurt.

Pretty straight-up baking.

Except that once more, I’m assured that the publisher who was in charge of this book must have awful copywriters. The recipe called for an 8-inch baking pan - since the most popular 8-inch pan is 2 inches high, you know you are in trouble when you finish your batter. Because if you are a baker, you realize that you have more batter than space in the baking pan to pour it all in. I still don’t know how my fellow Cook, Raymond did it. I decided to play it safe, not have a spilled batter mess at the bottom of my oven, and switched to the 8x3-inch cake pan. I was glad I did, the cake DID rise in the oven quite a bit, and the 3-inch high pan was a good decision.

The other, oh, oh, “TYPO” moment came at baking time. The book said the cake was made at the 30-minute mark. No dice, folk, the cake was not even close – I did not even bother to open the oven door; I could see it was not done. So I added another 15 minutes of baking time. At the 45-minute mark, it was golden on top, but the cake tester came out a bit wet, so I left it another 5 minutes. After a total of 50 minutes in the oven, the cake came out as it was supposed to.

You then pierce it all over and pour the lemon syrup on it, getting it all nice and soaked up; then, it is just a matter of “protecting it” from greedy fingers wanting to cut into it as it finishes its cooling time.

Tom lasted 2 hours (only because he took the little man to the video store) before he took a knife to it and ate THREE pieces!

As you can imagine, the cake was a hit. It’s tart, not too sweet - thanks to the yogurt addition. The almond flour makes it a dense cake (and you all know how I feel about dense, heavy cakes), and the butter balances it out by giving it a creamy, almost cheesecake texture. The best description for this cake is a rustic cake that you will only find in a family cookbook – comfort food baking at its best.

Here is the recipe – with my corrections:

Sticky Lemon Cake

From the Kitchen Bible

2 lemons
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 ½ sticks)
1¼ cups sugar (3/4 for the cake, ½ for the syrup)
2 large eggs plus one egg yolk
1⅓ cups almond flour (almond meal)
½ cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1⅓ cups plain regular yogurt

Preheat the oven to 325°F (175°C). Butter an 8x3 inch cake pan, and line the bottom with a round of parchment paper.
Grate the zest and squeeze the juice from the lemons; you should have 6 tablespoons of juice. Cream together the butter, and ¾ cup sugar, and the zest in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
Whisk the flour and the baking powder together to eliminate any lumps. Stir into the butter mixture, followed by the yogurt and 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice.
Spread in the pan. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until the center springs back when pressed or a cake tester comes out dry.
Meanwhile, stir the remaining ½ cups of sugar and 4 tablespoons of lemon juice in a saucepan over low heat to dissolve the sugar. Cool.
Transfer the cake to a wire rack. Pierce the cake all over with a skewer, and drizzle the syrup on top. Cool for 30 minutes. Invert onto the rack, remove the pan, peel off the paper, and cool completely.

Notes: The cake does shrink quite a bit once you take out of the oven, so don’t panic!

Other Gutsy Cooks made both menus, check them out.