I was very honoured and excited this month to be asked to be a guest recipe contributor to The Marshwood Vale Magazine. I chose to include this recipe because it’s deliciously light and fragrant, it’s also super easy to make, and a great one to have on hand if you have gluten intolerant guests or family visiting.

I first came across it from an old family friend called Jonah, a committed bachelor living in an idyllic house in the South West of France. I can only describe him as tickety boo, his life so ordered there wasn’t a leaf out of place in his garden and his week regimented so that every day had an assigned task that was un-moveable. He reminded me of ‘Mr Neat and Mr Tidy’ from the children’s book series ‘The Mr Men’!

He called his version of this cake ‘Monday cake’ and took great pride in the fact that he used his yoghurt carton as the measuring cup. Yoghurt works brilliantly in this recipe but if you can get hold of kefir it will work equally well especially if you can get it nice and thick. If you make your own kefir I give instructions  here of how to do that.

Lemon Kefir Cake

(Gluten Free)

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups of ground almonds
• 2 tsps baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup of thick kefir or yoghurt
• 1/2 cup of sugar, coconut sugar is a healthier alternative
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• Zest of 1 medium lemon
• 1/4 cup olive oil + a little extra to grease the pan

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C or gas mark 5)
2. In a large bowl whisk together ground almonds, baking powder and the salt
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together kefir, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, and lemon zest.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to combine.
5. Slowly fold in the 1/4 cup olive oil.
6. Line an 8-inch cake pan with parchment and coat lightly with olive oil.
7. Transfer the batter to the pan and spread evenly.
8. Place on the middle rack of your preheated oven and bake for 35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool before eating.

Note: This cake can easily be doubled up and baked in a 9-inch tin.