Whole Lemon and Cottage Cheese Spelt Cake
Ingredients
Cake:
- 110g (½ cup) butter (softened)
- 200g (1 cup) sugar
- ½ lemon
- 2 small eggs
- 250g (1 cup) cottage cheese
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 240g (2 cups) spelt flour (see note 1)
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
Frosting:
- ½ lemon
- icing / confectioners' / powdered sugar (see note 2)
Instructions
Cake:
- Grease and/or line a bundt pan (see note 3).
- Preheat the oven to 175℃ (350℉).
- Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (I used my stand mixer with a paddle attachment).
- Cut a lemon in half, and retain one half for the frosting.
- With the other half, roughly slice it and place in a food processor. Work until you are left with small pieces (similar to minced garlic).
- Add the lemon to the butter/sugar mixture along with the cottage cheese, eggs and vanilla. Whisk until well combined. Don't be alarmed that the curds of the cottage cheese don't mix in very well. Although it looks a bit weird, it's perfectly fine.
- Mix the remaining dry cake ingredients together and add to the wet. Work just until combined (don't over mix).
- The batter is very thick, so dollop it into the prepared pan, using a knife to level it off a little.
- Bake on a lower shelf for around 45 minutes. Start checking at 35 minutes. At this point, you will probably need to cover it with a little foil or baking paper so that it doesn't burn.
- The cake is ready when an inserted skewer comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven. The cake is very fragile when hot, so leave it for at least 30 minutes before removing it from the tin.
Frosting:
- Squeeze the other half of your lemon to produce around two tablespoons of juice.
- Add as much icing sugar as needed to create a very thick, slow dripping, frosting. Using a spoon, drop the frosting onto the top of the cake, pushing it down the sides.
- Grate some lemon zest over the top of the cake. Slice and enjoy!
Notes
I have converted grams to cups/ounces/tablespoons using online converters. Although I have no reason to believe they are inaccurate, please be aware that I have not made this recipe with imperial measurements.
- You can use spelt or regular flour for this recipe (just use the same amount).
- Use as little or as much icing sugar as you like. The more you use, the thicker the frosting will be.
- I used a bundt pan that was 1.2 liters in capacity (4o½ fluid ounces), but I would recommend going a little bigger, or reducing the amount of batter by a third. Alternatively, you could use a 23cm x 12cm / 9" x 5" loaf tin.
