The inspiration for a cake flavoured with limes came one Saturday morning when I was out doing the weekly shop. Limes had just come into season and the lucious green skins caught my attention.
By design, I don’t use a lot of sugar in this cake. Rather than icing the cake with lime-flavoured icing to enhance the lime flavour, I took the approach of the lime flavour being intrinsic to the cake itself. I feel the smaller amount of sugar brings out the flavour of both the lime and the yoghurt. If you prefer a sweeter cake, you may like to increase the measure of sugar to half a cup, or even two-thirds of a cup.
To give two tablespoons of grated lime zest, I use two limes. If I have extra zest left over, I scatter it over the top of the cake. In the photo above, I have first dusted the cake with icing sugar, then scattered the extra zest over the icing sugar.
Ingredients:
- 4 eggs
- 1 egg white
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 65 grams oil
- ¼ cup plain unsweetened low-fat yoghurt
- 2 tablespoons grate lime zest (I use two limes to get this amount)
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- ½ cup brown rice flour
- ⅓ cup white rice flour
- ¾ teaspoon Xantham gum
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
Method:
Line a 20cm round cake pan with baking paper.
Beat together the eggs, egg white and sugar until pale and fluffy.
Add the oil.
Mix in the yoghurt, lime zest and lime juice.
Add the brown rice flour, white rice flour, Xantham gum, baking powder and baking soda.
Beat lightly (I use a hand-held electric mixer on low speed) to combine all of the ingredients and to dissolve any large lumps. I beat for about 20 to 30 seconds. The mixture is quite runny.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and set aside to stand while the oven heats.
Pre-heat the oven to 180° C.
Place the cake in the pre-heated oven and bake for 30 minutes. Test with a skewer before removing from the oven. The cake browns well on top and is coming away from the sides of the pan when it is ready.
