When Life gives you lemons, make a cake

A Meyer lemon coffee cake to be precise. I like letting life happen to me. This is not to say I don’t have ambitions or make plans, I do. But I like to leave space for spontaneity and what the world might bring me. Last week my boss brought me a bag of Meyer lemons from her tree. I gave about half to my parents and still had over twenty lemons so I had to make one of my favorite cakes, Meyer lemon coffee cake. It’s dense but soft, has a lovely streusel layer on the bottom, and gets drizzled with a sweet lemony glaze.Ingredients:For streusel:

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, chilled

For cake:

• 5 Meyer lemons cut into thin slices
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons finely grated Meyer lemon zest
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup sour cream

For glaze:

• 1 cups confectioners' sugar
• 3-4 tablespoons Meyer lemon juice

First make the streusel: mix flour, brown sugar, and salt together. Using a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the flour mixture until small to medium clumps form. Cover, and refrigerate until ready to use (no more than 3 days).Next, make the cake: boil the lemon slices in a medium saucepan of simmering water for 1 minute. Drain, and repeat. Since you will be putting the lemon slices in the cake, this takes away the bitterness. Arrange the lemon slices in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet and let cool. At this point I go through with a spoon and pick out all of the seeds because crunching into a lemon seed in the midst of enjoying coffee cake is quite undesirable.Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch angel food cake pan. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt then set aside. Beat butter, granulated sugar, and lemon zest with a mixer on medium speed in a large bowl until light and fluffy, about one minute. With the mixer running, add eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with sour cream.Spoon 1/2 of the batter evenly into cake pan. Arrange 1/2 of the lemon slices in a single layer over the batter. Spread remaining batter evenly over the top. Cover with the remaining lemon slices in a single layer. Sprinkle the chilled streusel evenly over the batter.Bake until cake is golden brown and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 55 minutes, this took me more like 65-70 minutes but my oven likes to take its time.Transfer pan to a wire rack, and let cool in pan for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the edges of the pan and the center tube. Carefully wiggle the cake out of the pan paying attention to not break or damage the cake. Let cool completely on rack.Make the glaze: Just before serving, stir together confectioners' sugar and lemon juice in a medium bowl. Drizzle over cooled cake, letting excess drip down the sides. Let glaze set before slicing, about 5 minutes.Enjoy! 

**This story originally appeared in my column Postcards from the Kitchen in the Cedar Street Times on 21 September 2018