Rose Berenbaum’s Lemon Poppy Seed-Sour Cream Cake

My now gluten-free friend lent me her copy of Rose Levy Berenbaum’s “Rose’s heavenly cakes” a couple of months ago (ehm, last December? November?) and it led a faithful, albeit quiet life on my bookshelf while I wrote my thesis. It only surfaced once, back in January, when I made a fabulous gingerbread ginger cheesecake for my birthday (post to follow, possibly the best cheesecake recipe I have discovered so far. If one is into ginger. Which one is.) Every once in a while I would sit down with a cup of tea and go through the recipes, putting post-its next to the ones I planned on baking once the dreaded MA thesis was done with. Maybe the St Honoré-trifle? Or the sumptious Bernachon Palet d’Or Gâteau from the cover?

Winter passed (eventually), sunshine came, and all of a sudden, those rich, dark chocolaty recipes did’nt look all that appealing anymore (saving them up for the winter). Instead, since two dear friends’ birthdays happened to fall on the same day, I decided to use the occasion to try out the lemony poppy seed bread. I am not a big fan of the traditional German Zitronenkuchen (the Bahlsen ones are particularly awful). They tend to be too dry, and are just – boring.

This recipe, however, brings together a nice blend of poppy seeds (though they do kind of get lost in the cake – next time, I will double the amount), sour cream (which makes for a moist texture), and lemon syrup, which adds a natural lemon taste. It is fresh and lemony, and brings back happy memories of lemonade stands with Hannah (or just the dream of a lemonade stand? I can’t quite remember if there ever was one!).

One reason to love Rose Levy Berenbaum are her precise measurements. She gives you both volume and weight measurements – and since I agree with Julia Child's friend Simone Beck on this (“Measurements matter!”), I will give you both.

Make this a couple of hours in advance so it has time to chill in the fridge before you serve it.

Rose Berenbaum’s Lemon Poppy Seed-Sour Cream Cake

For the batter:

2 large eggs

1 egg yolk

¾ cups sour cream plus 1 tablespoon (200g)

1 ¾ tsp vanilla extract* 

1 ¼ cups sugar (250g)

1 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda (Natron)

½ tsp salt

lemon zest, finely grated (use organic lemon!)

1/3 cup poppy seeds (50g - be generous and double the amount, I could hardly taste them)

*I used 1 Paket Vanillezucker and reduced the sugar by 10g because we were out of vanilla extract.

For the lemon syrup:

½ cup sugar (112g)

6 tbsp lemon juice (100ml)

1. Preheat the oven to 350F/175 C. Grease the baking pans (I used three small ones, but you could also use a larger bread pan. Rose recommends a 10-cup Nordic Ware Elegant Hard Pan or metal fluted tube pan, but I don’t own either or even know what they are).

2. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, egg yolk, ¼ cup of the sour cream and vanilla until just lightly blended. Set aside.

3. In a larger bowl, blend together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, lemon zest, poppy seeds) until combined. Now add the butter and the remaining sour cream and mix until you get a moist dough, continually scraping down the sides of the bowl.

4. Continue on low speed, slowly adding the egg mixture until well blended.

Bake the case for 45 to 55 minutes.

5. Now comes the best part: the lemon syrup! It is really easy to make – just squeeze the lemons, put the lemon juice and the sugar into a microwaveable glass, and put it in the microwave for 90 seconds or longer. Take it out every 30 seconds and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved.

6. When the cake is baked, take it out of the oven and coat with 1/3 of the lemon syrup. Then let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove it and generously brush the top and the sides of the cake again. Save some (if you made the double amount) for serving.

Let the cake cool in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving. Since I can’t get enough of the lemon taste, I sprinkled my slice of cake with some of the remaining lemon syrup.

And now I am hungry again!

tightly packed, the cake lasts several days in the fridge