I can bake that too! Tom Colicchio’s Lemon Cake Recipe

At the end of last week, we posted about how Tom Colicchio is making food inspired by the upcoming TV series Game of Thrones. Along with the release, a recipe was given: Lemon Cake! So I figured, if Tom can do it – I can do it too! And I did.

Lemon Cakes by Tom Colicchio
Serves 6

Ingredients
1/2 cup sugar plus additional for dusting ramekins
2 eggs, separated
3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
Pinch kosher salt
2/3 cup buttermilk
2  1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Finely chopped zest of 1 1/2 lemons

Directions
Heat the oven to 300.  Butter and lightly sugar 6 4-ounce ramekins.  Beat the egg whites until they hold soft peaks then set them aside.  Sift the sugar with the flour and salt. In a mixer, using the whisk attachment, combine the buttermilk, lemon juice, egg yolks and lemon zest.

Gradually add the flour mixture then fold in the egg whites.  Divide the batter between the prepared ramekins.  Place the ramekins in a water bath (set the ramekins in a larger pan; fill the pan with enough hot water to come half way up the ramekins) cover with aluminum foil.

Bake until the cakes rise and are almost firm, about 25 minutes then uncover and continue baking until the tops are lightly golden and the cakes spring back when touched, about 15 minutes more.  Unmold and serve.

From Craft of Cooking, Clarkson Potter, 2003

But I did make a few minor changes to the recipe. First off, I only finely chopped the zest of ONE lemon because what am I going to do with half a zested lemon? Plus, the amount of juice needed comes out of one medium lemon. Also I only had 4 ramekins, so I ended up making four slightly larger ones that took 25 minutes covered and then another 25 minutes uncovered to fully bake.

I think they came out just fine because here is one of mine:

Tags: baker, cake, game of thrones, lemon, recipe, tom colicchio