Lemon Upside Down Cake

Luscious Lemon Desserts by Lori Botham has been sitting on my shelf for over a year now. It was one of those things I wanted desperately and vowed to make every recipe out of in the first few weeks. Lemon is one of my favorite flavors and desserts are so good, what could be better than combining the two? However, my lack of motivation got the better of me and the cookbook sat unused until a few days ago.

Last Sunday, we had friends over for the Packer playoff game and made Cajun food and drinks. I had decided we also needed a Cajun dessert. I found some wonderful recipes online, including a lemon meringue pie. As soon as I suggested that, my husband pointed out that if I wanted a lemon dessert, I had a wonderful cookbook I'd been meaning to use for ages. Luckily, we had all of the ingredients for a wonderful looking cake - Lemon Upside Down Cake.

That was the start of an afternoon spent in the kitchen, not watching the Packer game with our friends. They were, however, gracious about it and visited me in the kitchen often (when nothing important was happening, of course). Lemon Upside Down Cake is not the hardest thing to bake, but it contains more elements than I am used to and some techniques (making and folding in stiff-peaked egg whites) that I had not used before.

While trying to make those stiff-peaked egg whites, I had to call my husband in to help. I could not get the egg whites to form any peak, let alone a stiff one, and was afraid of over beating them. Then, folding in the eggs, I was concerned I was either folding them in too much or not enough. The trick, my husband said, is to run the spatula through the batter and then turn it over the egg whites, making them disappear. You will have to do this several times, so don't be too worried if it seems like you are doing it too much.

Then, I got nervous when I realized I had forgoten to zest the lemons before I put them in the brown sugar, so I looked online for substitutes. Lemon extract was suggested, with the tip to use half as much of it as the suggested zest amount, as it is much more potent. After I inverted the cake, I saw that the lemons I forgot to zest wound up shrinking much more than expected. I am almost glad I forgot, otherwise they would have been even smaller! Also, the lemons turn out candied, which makes them taste very good (rind and all), but very hard to cut through.

All in all, I was pleased with the recipe, and my husband and friends seemed to like it. It was not the most Cajun dessert out there but, it was very tasty. I might have to break out that cookbook a bit more often!