Lemon Cornmeal Cake with Meyer Lemon Glaze (Bon Appetite)

Lemon Cornmeal Cake with Meyer Lemon Glaze
and some California Strawberries

When the April 2009 issue of Bon Appétit arrived at the library, I started to salivate (as usual). They have a section on cakes that is just beautiful!

Then, I was going through my way overflowing Google Reader and found that Tracey's Culinary Adventure made the cake! It looked fantastic and I just had to try it out. I've been making the Everyday Food Orange Cornmeal Cake practically every day. I love this one too! You should definitely try both of these recipes!

The recipe calls for a crushed blueberry sauce, but I didn't have any and threw on some strawberries instead. The cake was so lemony delicious that it didn't need the sauce at all!

Okay, totally off-topic, but I seem to always have one competitive reality show going (no, I'm not talking about Octo-mom's competitive crazy person show - dude, she wins that one). I'm hooked again on the Amazing Race. Did you know that Mike White (screenwriter/actor of School of Rock, Chuck & Buck, The Good Girl) is in it with his 68 year old father? Totally my favorite team. The LA Times had a great article about it - Mike calls himself an "Amazing Race scholar." Sundays at 8 pm on CBS! It's not too late to join in the fun. And the host Phil is just so cute.

Lemon Cornmeal Cake with Meyer Lemon Glaze: I give it 4 forks!
You can find the full recipe here on epicurious!

Pancake Day - Cornmeal Pancakes with Maple Syrup

It's National Pancake Day!

IHOP is giving away free pancakes (requesting a donation to a good cause) and they say: "National Pancake Day dates back several centuries to when the English prepped for fasting during Lent. Strict rules prohibited the eating of all dairy products during Lent, so pancakes were made to use up the supply of eggs, milk, butter and other dairy products...hence the name Pancake Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday."

Adapted the recipe from Everyday Food's Basic Pancake recipe (I added a little cornmeal for texture). Here is what I used...

Dry Ingredients:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients:
1 cup soy milk
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 eggs

Follow directions on Everyday Food's recipe for mixing and cooking!

Have a great Pancake Day!

Orange Cornmeal Cake (Everyday Food)

Orange Cornmeal Cake (Everyday Food)

My Friday so far.
Get up late.
But want to bake.
Check my Delicious account for items tagged “quick.”
Find this recipe.
Make and bake.
Shower and get ready.
Pull cake out of oven.
Look at clock. Eeck!
Put the hot cake on cooling rack in my car.
Drive to work.
Take some photos in the library (sorry for the bad lighting – it was raining outside). Thanks to the Children's Librarian for letting me borrow a piece of blue construction paper for the background!

And now we are at my lunch hour.

Not much to say besides MAKE THIS CAKE. Here's the recipe!

I used navel or Valencia oranges (can never tell them apart) from my neighbor’s yard (left) and some California grown Cara Cara Oranges (right). Have you had the Cara Cara? They are one of my favorites.

Granulated sugar tops the cake

This cake is super duper simple (one bowl, by hand, no melting, creaming, or getting anything to room temp). It uses olive oil so it’s dairy free (but does contain eggs). You can use either dry white wine or orange juice (I used fresh squeezed orange juice). And, as I joked with a co-worker, it has cornmeal...and that's a vegetable! :)

The only thing I might do different is bake it in a springform instead of a regular cake pan. You have 1/3 cup sugar on top and need to invert it. The springform would make that less messy. Cara Cara orange section garnish the cake.

Here's the recipe for Orange Cornmeal Cake! Make this cake and have a great weekend!!