I was introduced to sweet rice flour about ten years ago when my high school friend, Azusa of Humble Bean, shared a recipe for matcha mochi cupcakes. The rice flour that I’ve been using is the Koda Farms brand and I have found it at Asian markets as well as at the grocery store. I love the chewy texture that rice flour gives to baked goods so I went on a search for something I could make that would also involve lemons. Because – and I don’t know why – I’ve been craving lemony treats lately. I came across a recipe for “sweet rice lemon pound cake” and had to modify it a little bit because I ran out of sugar when I tried to make it. It turned out pretty great according to a couple of friends (and my taste buds) so I thought I would share it here with all of you too. Enjoy!
Ingredients for the cake:
- 2 sticks of butter (1/2 pound), at room temperature
- 1-1/2 cups of sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1/3 cup of lemon zest
- 2/3 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice
- 1 box of sweet rice flour (16 ounces/1 pound)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
Directions for the cake:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease the bottom of your cake pans and then line them with a piece of parchment paper. The original recipe calls for 2 regular sized loaf pans but I wanted to make some smaller loaves to give away. I used 1 regular sized loaf pan and 3 mini pans. Note: I feel like the larger loaf turned out flatter than intended so I probably should’ve used only 2 mini pans and added more to the larger one.
- Cream the butter and sugar in a mixer or with a hand mixer for a couple of minutes until it is pale yellow.
- In the meantime, zest and squeeze your lemons. I ended up using 5 lemons for this recipe and increased the amount of lemon juice from 1/2 cup in the original recipe to almost 2/3 cup in mine. I think anywhere between 1/2 and 2/3 cup will work fine.
- Add eggs one at a time and let them get really blended into the batter, then add the lemon zest and juice.
- Add the dry ingredients a little at a time. The batter will be kind of thick.
- Divide into your loaf pans.
- Bake for 45-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Note: I felt like this was kind of vague in the original recipe, and it is going to depend on your oven and how many pans you end up using (or how full each loaf pan is, right?). I ended up doing a total of only 40 minutes because my pans weren’t as full and it was enough, but check yours early in the baking process and test with a toothpick.
- Remove from the pans while still warm (I let mine cool for about five minutes in the pan) and peel the parchment paper off. In the meantime, you can make the syrup glaze.
Ingredients for the syrup glaze:
- about 2/3 cup of lemon juice
- 1 cup or slightly more of confectioner sugar
Directions for the glaze:
The original recipe calls for 3/4 cup of lemon juice and to use regular sugar, but I didn’t have that much of either ingredient and ended up creating this instead. It also wanted you to boil the lemon juice with the sugar which would produce a thicker glaze. (You should totally do that if you have the ingredients!) This version is a lot runnier but I think still pretty effective in delivering a nice lemony tartness to the cake.
- Combine the lemon juice and confectioner sugar and mix with a fork until the sugar dissolves. If it seems too runny you can add more sugar to thicken it slightly.
- Poke holes in the top of the loaves with a toothpick and use a spoon to ladle some of the glaze on top. I did about two coatings of the glaze as it settled into the holes so that it would soak up more.
I let the loaves cool down completely before wrapping each in a piece of parchment paper and then with plastic wrap. We stored the leftover loaf in the refrigerator and it was delicious cold the next day. It is a dense cake with a little bit of a chew, and goes well with hot tea. Enjoy!
And if you’ve read this far (!!) and if you’re interested in learning about Japanese cooking, Azusa has a new cookbook out and it’s available through Amazon!
ShortcakeScraps 