Lemon and Almond Cake with Olive Oil and Yoghurt

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A light and fluffy lemon and almond sponge cake, topped with a lemon icing and toasted almonds. Quick and easy to make, the yoghurt and olive oil ensure the cake is moist, the flavour of the olive oil pairs deliciously with the lemon, which, in turn, is balanced with and the mellow and sweet almonds.

This cake works as well for afternoon tea as it does for a dessert, although for dessert, I would be tempted to serve it with some crème fraîche. Incredibly quick to make, you can knock this up in not time, should you have some surprise visitors, or you simply fancy a delicious, summery cake and want something easy and speedy. It uses mostly store cupboard ingredients and should you not have any ground almonds, or you would prefer a nut-free cake, simply replace the almonds with flour. I love it this way too!

How to make Lemon and Almond Cake with Olive Oil and Yoghurt

This sponge cake is based on my Butter and Oil Cakes – Core Recipe – a recipe I developed to be able to bake at altitude. Our house in Switzerland is at over 1600m altitude and this makes baking difficult. Some traditional bakes will not rise but cakes made with oil and yoghurt fare better. I just love the light and airy texture and the fact it can be whipped up so quickly.

The changes I have made include:

• using just olive oil rather than oil and butter
• using additional yoghurt to replace the liquid
• replacing some of the flour with ground almonds

Collect all the ingredients together:

Cake:

• plain/all-purpose flour
• ground almonds
• baking powder
• bicarbonate of soda/baking soda
• fine salt
• caster sugar
• olive oil
• large egg
• natural yoghurt
• almond extract
• vanilla extract 
• grated lemon zest

  Icing:

• icing sugar
• lemon juice
• toasted almonds (optional)

How to make this delicious cake:

1. Add the dry ingredients: flour, almonds and salt. Add the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda directly on top of the flour and then cover with the sugar.
2. Add the wet ingredients: oil, eggs, vanilla extract, almond extract and yoghurt.
3. Beat with a balloon or electric whisk until incorporated – be careful not to over-mix. It should take 30 seconds to a minute and you may need to stop half way to scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl.
4. Add the lemon zest and fold in. You could mix this in with the other ingredients but I find it gets caught on the whisks and you lose a lot of that delicious flavour; by stirring it in, I ensure it is all added.
5. Pour the cake batter into a greased and lined cake tin and cook in the centre of a preheated oven for 25 – 30 minutes or until cooked.
6. Leave in the tin for 5 minutes, remove from the tin and then transfer the cake to a cooling rack to cool completely before icing.

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Ice the cake:

1. Slowly add the lemon juice to the icing sugar. Mix thoroughly until you have a thick paste.
2. Transfer the cake to a serving plate.
3. Pour over the icing and spread over the surface of the cake.
4. Scatter over the toasted almonds, if using.

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Made this recipe?

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