More Snow – Meyer Lemon Snowflake Take 2

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It snowed this week. And, if you read the Travels to Anywhere Snowy post (https://auntastasia.blog/travels-to-anywhere-snowy/), you know that I was not entirely happy with the previous Meyer lemon snowflake cake. I gave it another try, with much better flavor results the second (and third) time – at least in my opinion. This cake has a very strong citrus flavor, and if you are not looking for a punch of citrus, you will likely prefer the earlier recipe.

Before we get to the recipe, here are a few more pictures of actual travels to snowy places out west. I have no idea who that skier is, but I liked the silhouette.

This second try begins with the Grapefruit and Meyer Lemon Bundt Cake recipe from Yossy Arefi’s “Sweeter off the Vine” cookbook. I have made the recipe as written, and it was an enormous hit. For this particular cake, I wanted to focus on just the Meyer lemon flavor, and I was looking for a lighter texture to go with the snowflake shape, so I made a few changes to the original recipe. One of those changes was buttermilk instead of sour cream. I will confess, that was because I had buttermilk but not sour cream and was too lazy to go to the store, but I think this helped with making it lighter.

Meyer lemons with stick of butter to emphasize size and color

There are a couple specific things that I took from the original recipe that help make the citrus pop. First, the zest is rubbed into the sugar. If you have ever added citrus zest to batter, then found all the zest clumped on your beaters, you will appreciated the practicality of this. It also helps to distribute flavor. Second, unlike almost all other citrus recipes, the lemon flesh is used in the batter. For this you “supreme” the citrus, but do not worry about getting beautiful segments for this as you are going to break them up anyway.

This cooks at a lower temperature (325 F), so the cake remained quite pale. Also – and this should go without saying, but you can see from the “lace” around the edge in the picture with the recipe that I made this mistake (on the second try) – do not overfill your pan. You do not want to be cleaning caramelized batter from your oven floor.

Meyer Lemon Snowflake Take 2
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Meyer Lemon Snowflake Take 2

Course: Cake

Ingredients

  • Cake

  • 3 medium to large Meyer lemons (you might want 4 if they are really little – see photo above for scale of the ones used for this recipe. You want to end up with around 1/2 cup of supremed lemon pieces and juice)

  • 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

  • 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

  • 1/4 tsp baking soda

  • 1/4 tsp salt

  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter – room temperature

  • 3 large eggs – room temperature

  • 1/2 cup buttermilk – room temperature

  • Glaze

  • 1 Meyer lemon

  • 1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

Directions

  • Cake
  • Preheat oven to 325° F. If using patterned pan, prepare pan with baking spray. Or grease and flour pan.
  • Scrub the lemons well with a produce brush. Dry. Zest them. Mix the zest with the granulated sugar, rubbing through your fingers to thoroughly blend.
  • Supreme the lemons over a bowl to catch all the juice as you are doing this. Remove any seeds. Break up any large chunks into small pieces no larger than 1/2 inch.
  • Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt together in small bowl.
  • Beat butter with paddle attachment of stand mixer on medium for about 2 minutes. Add 1/2 of the sugar and zest mixture. Beat about 2 minutes on medium-high. Add remaining sugar/zest mixture, and beat until very light and fluffy, about 4 minutes more.
  • Reduce mixer speed to medium again. Add the eggs one at a time and mix thoroughly after each addition, scraping the bottom and sides of bowl as needed.
  • Reduce mixer speed to low. Add the buttermilk and mix until incorporated, then add the flour and mix until combined. Fold in the lemon pieces and juice.
  • Pour (it will be thick, so “pour” might not be the right word) mixture into prepared pan. Tap pan on counter several times to make sure that the crevices are filled. Do not fill more than 3/4 full (see note above about really not wanting to clean this from your oven if it runs over).
  • Bake until tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes.
  • Cool the cake in the pan for about 10 minutes. Invert onto wire rack.
  • Glaze
  • Prepare the glaze after turning the cake out of the pan.
  • Zest and juice Meyer lemon. Mix zest with confectioners sugar. Mix in sufficient lemon juice until the consistency is relatively thick, but can be drizzled by spoon. (You might need slightly more than the juice of one lemon for this).
  • When the cake has cooled for about 15 minutes out of the pan, evenly drizzle the glaze over the cake. A lot of it will soak in, which works well for the pattern. If you prefer more glaze on the top of the cake, drizzle 1/2 the glaze at 15 minutes out of the pan, and the remaining glaze (you’ll need to whisk it again) about 15-20 minutes later. You want to put your rack on a tray, or put waxed paper or parchment under it, to avoid having to clean the dripped glaze from your counter.
The third try before and after glaze.