Lemon Upside-Down Cake

Ingredients:

3 lemons (zest and juice)
150g sugar
150g soft butter
3 eggs
180g flour
1 sachet of baking powder
50g brown sugar

50ml water

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 180°C.  Grease a cake pan.

In a small saucepan, heat the brown sugar and water until you have a syrup. Pour this syrup into the bottom of the pan.

Thinly slice the lemons and arrange them on top of the syrup in the tin.

In a bowl, beat the soft butter with the sugar until creamy.

Add the eggs one at a time, then the lemon zest and juice.

Stir in the flour and baking powder.

Pour the batter over the lemon slices and bake for 35-40 minutes.

Let cool slightly before turning out upside down so the caramelized lemons are on top.

History of Lemon Upside-Down Cake:

Piled high in a big bowl on the kitchen counter, flamboyantly yellow lemons are usually eye-catching accidental still-life artworks this time of year. Their pure, primary colors and shapes warm the room. But this season, after the citrus-freezing weather, lemons have become little luxuries. Maybe we should be displaying them one at a time in velvet-lined cases.

It’s a new way of thinking about an everyday ingredient. And the lemon stands up to the scrutiny, of course. Every bit of the fruit is precious to the cook -- the peel (rich in aromatic oil), the tart flesh -- nothing need be discarded. Instead, showcase the lemons you’ve lovingly selected at the farmers market in these three desserts that make the most of the fruit’s unique panoply of flavors and textures.

A lemon upside-down cake with a deliriously marmalade-like topping was inspired by an orange and cardamom upside-down cake recipe from David Lebovitz, a longtime pastry chef at Chez Panisse (the recipe is on his website, www.davidlebovitz.com).

A Shaker lemon pie, adapted from a recipe by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson (“Tartine”), is an unusual two-crust creation with the elegant combination of simplicity and beauty (or in this case, deliciousness) that informs the Shaker ethos. Both use lemon slices, rind and all, and can be made with regular or Meyer lemons (those mellow, thin-skinned beauties).