Sunday, January 31, 2010

Eggless Low-fat Lemon Loaf

It is about that time of the year when I start scouring my bookmarks, links, notes, and cookbooks for ideas to use lemon zest, lemon juice, or the whole lemon, as my Meyer lemon tree is heavy with fruit and ready to harvest. There will be plenty of citrusy salads and even a basic waran bhaat will get a generous squeeze of home grown lemons, but it is the baked goods that I look forward to experimenting with.

While many of the recipes I look through get pushed lower on the list if they are too daunting or time consuming, this snack cake looked easily adaptable. The fact that it is low-fat made it sound even better. I added plenty of lemon zest for flavor, and baked it in a loaf pan, turning it into a lemony loaf cake. I had to bake it a little longer which was probably due to the shape of the pan. I also de-veganized it because I didn't want to run out to buy a small amount of soy yogurt and soy milk, but using soy would make it truly vegan.

This is a lovely light cake that can be enjoyed without guilt as a snack, with tea, or for breakfast, and when dressed up with a fruit compote or puree it works as an elegant dessert too. I am sending it to this month's Grow Your Own event.

Lemon loaf cake

Here is my recipe, adapted from Susan's, with many thanks to her.

Meyer Lemon loaf Cake

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups cake flour
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1/4 cup yogurt (regular or soy)
1-1/2 Tablespoons oil, plus a little more for the pan
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup milk (regular or soy)
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degree F.

Grease a 9x5 inch pan well with oil.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl, blend the yogurt, oil, vanilla, water, soymilk, and lemon juice. Do not overmix. Stir in the lemon zest. Stir in the dry ingredients with a whisk or spatula.

Pour the batter into the greased pan.

Bake for about 35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove and allow to cool completely. Loosen sides gently with a knife and remove from pan.


Serving suggestion

Mango Sauce: Mix together a few tablespoons of mango jam with equal amount of water, and heat for a few minutes until it forms a sauce.

Lemon cake with mango sauce

24 comments:

Sonia said...

A very beautiful Lemon loaf. The mango sauce look so nice on it. :)

Unknown said...
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Mints! said...

WOW! Lovely lovely lovely and easy.

I was wondering if TC's lemon curd would be too thick for this ... have to try!
It was a lemon baking day for me too yesterday :)

Home Cooked Oriya Food said...

looks so yum...

Susan Voisin said...

Please forgive me if I steal your adaptation of my recipe. It just looks SO good! :-)

sra said...

What a transformation from first pic to second pic - one so serene and the other so vibrant!

Laavanya said...

That looks soft and fluffy - bookmarked to try

Laavanya said...

That looks soft and fluffy - bookmarked to try

Parita said...

Thats gorgeous looking loaf! Looks very moist and yumm!

evolvingtastes said...

Sonia, Somoo, Laavanya, Parita, thank you!

Mints, sorry about such a late response. Did you try with the lemon curd? What did you do?

Susan, its all yours!! Thanks so much for the facebook link love.

Sra, that's what mango does eh? :)

Nate, thanks for stopping by and letting me know about your event. I have sent it in.

Lynn said...

This one sounds like a winner :) I have a Meyer lemon tree, too, and still have plenty of fruit on it. Time to get baking! I made lemon curd last year but still want to do at least a batch or two with this year's crop.

manisha0_0 said...

looks yumm. will surely try it.

Archana said...

After reading this recipe I had to try it out.
But I had run out of cake flour so i used wheat flour and there started trouble. I did not increase the liquids ans so the batter formed a soft dough. I hate to waste food so I continued and baked the cake.
The fragrance/ aroma of the cake was yum.......... ! I had many questions as to what i was up to.
The end result was wonderful. The cake just disappeared. Thanks a lot! do i have ur permission to use the recipe elsewhere.

evolvingtastes said...

Hi Archana, glad to know it worked out well! Thanks for asking about using the recipe. If you link back to the site, it should be fine!

Mansi said...

I've made this too, thanks to Susan, but I loved your idea of drizzling it with Mango sauce! that would pair up so well with the citrus in the cake:) good one:)

btw, I'm hosting a Magic Bullet giveaway on my blog, and it'd be great if you could participate!

evolvingtastes said...

That's great. Thanks for letting me know, Mansi.

Namrata said...

Lovely!

evolvingtastes said...

Thanks Namrata!

Mints! said...

I made this yesterday with special Meyer Lemons :)
I did not have cake flour - used chapati flour
Used Turbinado Sugar instead of white sugar and less quantity.
used extra pich of baking powder.
Added Blueberries in the batter.
Made non-vegan version as I ran out of Soyamilk.
Result was very light bread and spongy texture.

Thank you and Susan :)

evolvingtastes said...

Mints, good to know! Also glad to hear that the lemons are being used!

Lynn said...

I made your Meyer lemon loaf cake recipe last night (finally!) and topped it with blackberry sauce. Yum. :) Thanks for the recipe.

evolvingtastes said...

Lynn, you are most welcome!

Anonymous said...

The list says: 1-1/2 Tablespoons oil, plus a little more for the pan. However, it does not say to add it anywhere in the instructions. Is it needed in recipe or just for pan?

evolvingtastes said...

Good catch! Updated the post.

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