The Perfect Light Lemony Lemon Cake this week with Jason

It’s getting hot. The days of heavy meals are distant memories now, shaky images in the rearview mirror of culinary winter. I still need dessert, though, no matter if it feels like Venus on a bad day outside right now. It needs to be light, it needs to be refreshing, and it needs to be healthy. Sounds impossible, but you all know much better than that by now.

Delicious yet healthy desserts are easy peasy lemon squeezy – quite literally in this case. I looked to Italy for some inspiration and thought one of their Italian style cakes made with almond flour would fit the bill nicely. We skip all the simple carbs, unhealthy fats, and mystery ingredients of a boxed cake with this one. The ingredients are short, sweet, and natural, just as they should be. By contrast, here’s the list on a box o’ mystery cake mix:

Ingredients

Enriched Flour Bleached (wheat flour, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), Sugar, Corn Syrup, Leavening (baking soda, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate). Contains 2% or less of: Modified Corn Starch, Corn Starch, Propylene Glycol Mono and Diesters, Salt, Monoglycerides, Palm Oil, Dicalcium Phosphate, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Xanthan Gum, Cellulose Gum, Artificial Flavor, Citric Acid, Yellow 5 and Other Color Added. Freshness Preserved by Alpha Tocopherol.

That’s a weird list. I’ll pass. Make this one instead and you will feel better inside and look better outside. And in the end, that’s about the best we can hope for, isn’t it?

Italian Lemon Cake:

Ingredients

2 cups fine almond flour (224 grams)

Fresh squeezed lemon juice (1/4 cup or two lemons)

Zest from two lemons

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup stevia in the raw

1/2 tsp baking powder and baking soda

1/8 tsp sea salt

Glaze:

6 tbsp powdered monkfruit sweetener

Macadamia Nut milk (drizzled in bit by bit)

Instructions:

Beat the eggs in a bowl, then add the stevia in the raw and whisk until smooth. Add the lemon juice, olive oil, vanilla, and zest of one lemon and whisk again:

In a large mixing bowl, combine the almond flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda, whisk to combine. Pour the wet team on top of the dry team, and whisk to combine:

Grease a springform pan by rubbing grass fed butter on the bottom and sides. Use a spatula to transfer the batter to the pan and smooth it out:

Shape an aluminium cover for the pan before baking:

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, then cover the pan with the foil, and bake for another 5 minutes. Let it cool completely on the counter. Mix the icing by putting the powdered monkfruit in a bowl and slowly drizzling in the nut milk, whisking constantly until an icing forms. Spread the icing over the cake: