Sometimes a cake is perfect for any time of the day, including breakfast. This is one of those cakes! Plus, it has lemons. Lemons=fruit and fruit=healthy so I’m going with this is health food.
Do it for your body.
Ingredients
- 3 lemons
- 1/3 + 3/4 cups sugar, separated
- ¾ cup butter (1/2 cup room temperature, ¼ cup to be melted)
- 3 cups flour, separated
- ¼ t salt
- 2 ½ t baking powder
- 2 eggs, brought to room temperature
- 4 t vanilla, separated
- ½ cup buttermilk
- Powdered sugar for dusting
Directions
Butter and flour or spray a springform pan and set that aside.Grab one of your lemons and zest it, putting the zest in a food processor (don’t put away your zester – you’ll need it again shortly). Juice the lemon and set the juice to the side.
Add 1/3 cup of sugar to the zest in the food processor and pulse until the whole mixture turns a pale yellow.
In a separate bowl, melt ¼ cup butter. Add lemon sugar mixture, 1 T of the lemon juice (keep the rest) 1 cup of the flour and 1 t vanilla. Mix with a fork until clumpy and set aside – this is your topping. 
Now on to the cake itself.
If you have a stand mixer use that – otherwise a hand mixer will work.
First off, zest and juice your remaining two lemons.
Add the remaining ½ cup of butter and the remaining 2 cups of flour and the zest of the remaining 2 lemons and beat until well combined. Next, add in the rest of your ingredients – the salt, baking powder, eggs, the remaining 3 t vanilla, the remaining ¾ cup sugar, ¼ cup of lemon juice and the buttermilk and mix on low just until everything is combined.
Get your prepared pan and pour in the batter. Get your topping mix and sprinkle it evenly over the batter. Bake at 325 for 45 minutes or until the top is a nice golden brown and a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out dry.
Move the pan to a wire rack and let cool for about 15-20 minutes, then remove the cake from the pan. Dust the top of the still warm cake with a little powdered sugar and let cool completely. Slice and serve!
Ugly Desserts 