🚨🥣: Passover is this weekend and if you need a Matzo Ball soup recipe you can find mine below.
I just have to say–I am so excited about today’s recipe!! Every now and then I have an idea for something and it just works. I am still always surprised when this happens and it is the best feeling in the world.
A little back story, I have been trying to make a lemon poppy seed recipe for so long. Lemon poppy seed something…anything! First, it was cookies and I dumped the poppy seed and ended up with Lemon Drop Cookies. This time I tried with a lemon poppy seed cake, a classic. The cake was fantastic but the more I ate, the more I realized that poppy seeds brought nothing but a little texture to the cake.
I spiraled down a poppy seed Google search and found some interesting history on poppy seeds. They do actually have a flavor! It is very mild and slightly nutty. Unless you make a poppy seed jam/filling, you won’t get much flavor from a small amount of them in a recipe.
After my research, I made the decision to drop poppy seeds. Not all together but from lemon desserts for the foreseeable future. I am done trying to make them work. This is where sesame seeds come in…
Sesame seeds have been on my mind a LOT recently. I love them and their flavor but Marco is allergic. They only get used occasionally in my kitchen and I stopped buying tahini because I don’t use it enough. After nixing the poppy seeds all I could think about was lemon and sesame flavors together. I grabbed a jar of tahini, adjusted the recipe, and here we are! This Lemon Tahini Loaf is lemon forward with mild nuttiness from the tahini and toasted sesame seeds. It’s not too sweet and I would categorize this cake as a snack cake. The type of cake that is acceptable to eat for breakfast, as a snack in the afternoon, and as dessert. The top is covered with demerara sugar and more sesame seeds which make a special crunchy top. This cake is delicious, I love it so much, so let’s get right on into it!
We are using the whole lemon…
That’s right! Peel, pith, and flesh go into this cake. The only part I want you to discard is the seeds. Everything else gets finely diced and added to the cake for lots of lemon flavor. Using the peel means it is super important to use an organic lemon and make sure to scrub it well before slicing. Conventional lemons are sprayed with nasty chemicals and you don’t want those in your cake.
A little refresher on peeling citrus with your knife: Start by slicing off both ends to create two flat sides. One will be the bottom and one will be the top. Then with the lemon sitting flat on the bottom, cut strips of the peel from top to bottom curving your knife around the flesh.
*For more visuals on peeling citrus check out this newsletter and recipe for Citrus Escarole & Blue Cheese Salad.
This recipe uses a medium-size lemon. One that fits in the palm of my hand nicely. If you have very small lemons I suggest using two.
You can run back over a section again to remove any pith you miss on the first run. Discard any pieces that are all pith with no yellow peel, like the ones in the photo below.
Then we are going to finely dice the peel and the flesh separately. The peel I like to cut as small as possible, more of a mince than a dice. The flesh is a little slippery and harder to cut as small but slightly bigger pieces of lemon flesh are okay in the cake.
Add the chopped peel to a large bowl and hold the flesh plus any juices in a small bowl off to the side. You’ll notice in the picture above I’m using a small plastic cutting board. I do this with anything juicy because it is much easier to lift up and pour the juices off of instead of my giant Boos Block. We want as much lemon juice as possible in our cake!
Now we make our batter!
The lemon peel and granulated sugar get mixed together first…with our hands. Rub the peel pieces and the sugar between your fingers to release the oils in the lemon peel. Do this for a minute or two until you can really smell lemon. Shake off as much sugar as possible, give your hands a wash, and grab a whisk.
Next, all your wet ingredients get added to the sugar. Eggs, egg yolks, Greek yogurt, vanilla extract, and diced lemon flesh. Whisk until smooth and then switch to a rubber spatula.
Now we add the dry ingredients. AP flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Use your spatula to fold in all the dry ingredients until there are no bits of flour showing and set this bowl off to the side.
The last ingredients we need to add are tahini and vegetable oil. We could have added them with the wet ingredients but tahini seizes up when it is mixed with liquid.
Seizing is when a smooth fluid ingredient becomes grainy and stiff. You may have seen this before with melted chocolate and a single drop of water makes it firm up.
Anyways, I like to whisk the oil with the tahini separately to thin it out and mix the thinned tahini into the batter at the very end to ensure the batter is nice and smooth. This is when I throw in the toasted sesame seeds too. Untoasted work also but toasted seeds have a little extra flavor. You could also toast sesame seeds at home but be cautious because they burn in a half a second.
Side note: When you grab your batter after it has sat for a few minutes while you stir in your tahini, it may look bubbly and airy. That’s because it is. This recipe has baking soda in it and lemon juice, AKA acid. So what you see is the same bubbling reaction we all did as a science experiment as kids. When you mix in the oil and tahini it will deflate a little bit. Don’t worry about it, mix until smooth, and then we move on!
Our batter is going into a loaf pan that has been lightly oiled and lined with parchment paper. I use metal binder clips to hold the parchment paper in place but it will stick to the oiled pan fine without them.
Our last and final set is sprinkling extra sesame seeds and demerara sugar on top. As the loaf cake bakes the seeds and large grain sugar make a nice crust over the top. If you do not have demerara sugar use regular granulated sugar instead. This is my favorite part, you’ll see why when you try it.
Into a 350º oven for 55-65 minutes. I like to place my loaf pan onto a small sheet tray to ease oven loading and unloading. Once a cake tester or small knife comes out clean from the center, the cake is done. Cool in the pan for a few minutes before running a knife along the short sides, to make sure there is no sticking, and use the parchment paper to lift the cake out of the pan. Let it cool almost all the way before slicing and enjoy!
Lemon Tahini Loaf
1 medium-size lemon*Â
200g granulated sugarÂ
113g Greek yogurt, room temperatureÂ
2 eggs, room temperatureÂ
2 egg yolks, room temperatureÂ
2g vanilla extractÂ
210g AP flourÂ
4g baking powderÂ
3g baking sodaÂ
3g Morton’s Kosher SaltÂ
85g tahiniÂ
66g vegetable oilÂ
18g toasted sesame seeds, dividedÂ
15g demerara sugarÂ
Heat an oven to 350º
Prep your panÂ
1. Add a bit of vegetable oil to a loaf pan (I use a 4.5x8.5 inch loaf pan) and oil the pan with a paper towel. Cut a strip of parchment paper to stick to the bottom and come up the long sides. You will cut one long strip and it will stick to the bottom and sides because of the oil. You can clip down the top with metal binder clips to hold it in place also.Â
Peel and dice the lemonÂ
*Wash your lemon well giving it a good scrub and use organic if possible.Â
2. Start by slicing off both ends to create two flat sides. One will be the bottom and one will be the top. Then with the lemon sitting flat on the bottom, cut strips of the peel from top to bottom curving your knife around the flesh. You can run back over a section again to remove any pith you miss on the first run. Discard any pieces that are all pith with no yellow peel. Finely dice the peel and place the diced peel in a large bowl.Â
3. Take the peeled lemon and dice the flesh. Transfer the diced flesh and any juice on the cutting board to a small bowl and hold for later.Â
Make the cakeÂ
4. Add granulated sugar to the large bowl with the diced lemon peel. Use your hands and gently rub the peel and sugar together. This releases the oils and will bring out more lemon flavor in the cake. Do this for a minute or two until it smells very fragrant.Â
5. Add Greek yogurt, eggs, egg yolks, vanilla extract, and diced lemon flesh to the sugar. Whisk to combine.Â
6. Next, add the dry ingredients. Flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Switch to a rubber spatula and fold in the dry ingredients until evenly combined and there are no more dry spots.Â
7. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the tahini and vegetable oil, then add that to the large bowl with our cake batter along with the 10g of toasted sesame seeds. Using your spatula, stir everything until the oil/tahini looks incorporated and the batter is no longer oily.Â
8. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Sprinkle 15g of demerara sugar and the remaining 8g of toasted sesame seeds over the top.Â
9. Bake at 350º for 55-65 minutes. A cake tester or small knife will come out clean when it is fully baked. Cool in the pan for a few minutes then run a knife along the short sides without parchment paper to make sure there is no sticking. Pull up on the parchment paper and the loaf will come right out. Cool completely on a rack.
*This recipe uses a medium-size lemon. One that fills the palm of my hand nicely. If you have very small lemons I suggest using two.Â
Thanks for reading and baking with me! Talk to you next week.
Xx M