Lemon Ginger Cake

I can’t be the only one who experiments on a whim with baking and cooking.  Today’s creation came out rather good so thought I’d pass it along.  Some of the measurements are rather loose, sorry I rarely bake or cook as an exact science.

This mash up of ingredients was not what I thought I was going to make.  I started out attempting to separate eggs.  The universe wasn’t cooperating.  Sure, I’ll blame it on the universe, not my shaking hands, the universe can take the fall for this one today ;-).  First egg separated fine, white into 1 bowl, yolk in another.  2nd egg, the yolk split and about a tsp got into the whites, ok, I fished it out.  3rd egg, white into 1 bowl and then I in one fell swoop threw the yolk into the trash not the 2nd bowl, oops.  4th egg, split and yolk all over the whites.  So I threw in the towel and changed plans.  I thought I was going to experiment with a cake type thing where I beat the whites stiff then added other stuff in, maybe using the yolks, maybe not.  Yea, that didn’t happen.

Instead this is what happened:

Lemon Ginger Gluten Free Cake

• 4 duck eggs (or x large chicken eggs)
• 1 tsp gluten free vanilla
• couple of turns on the salt grinder (I use Himalayan sea salt, the pink stuff)

Into a large bowl and beat on high with the mixer for a couple of minutes.  They were frothy and over double in size when I stopped the beaters.

then grate into that about 3/4 of the rind of one medium size lemon, think that was maybe a little over a teaspoon?   And grate in somewhere between 1-2 tablespoons of fresh ginger.  then add the juice of that lemon you grated the rind of off.  beat in until mixed.  (note the cake is rather lemony, which I like, but if you would rather a more subtle lemon flavor I would cut back the amount of lemon rind, maybe grate in the rind of only 1/2 or even 1/3 of the lemon?)

then slowly beat in 1 1/4 c sugar (if you were using a meyer lemon you could use less sugar, I know the lemons I had on had were rather sour from using them in another dish so wanted to try to hedge my bets on balancing that with the sugar).

in another small bowl mix together

• 1.5 c brown rice flour
• .5 c tapioca starch/flour
• 1 heaping teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• couple more turns of the salt grinder

then slowly beat that into the egg mixture

once combined, beat in 1/3c olive oil, 1/3c grape seed oil (or you can sub in your preferred fat of choice), and 1/4c agave nectar (you could probably skip the agave, again I knew how sour my lemon was and was trying to balance that out, which it worked, the cake is not too sweet and not sour).  As you beat it will be rather thick and trying to climb the beaters.

pour into a greased baking dish.  the one I used is 6″x10″ by 2″ deep.  I sprinkled a small amount of turbinado sugar on the top to help it brown and crisp.

bake for approx 40min (or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean) in a 325’F oven  (ours is a convection oven, so on a standard oven I might bake it at 350’F, or 325′ for a bit longer).

This cake came out much better than I anticipated.  I wasn’t sure if it was going to be too dense, but the beating of the eggs so much to start I think really helped this to be light and airy.  I am really enjoying it!  Hope you have as much success as I have if you try it yourself.