What's-in-Your-Fridge Citrus Cake

• servings: 1 cake

Ingredients

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup brown or white sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon kosher salt

3/4 cup sour crean, plain whole-milk yogurt, ricotta, or a similarly thick dairy combination (see chart on recipe image)

3 eggs

1/2 cup oil (neutral oil if you don't want it to stand out, coconut oil for flavor)

1/4 cup citrus juice

1 tablespoon grated citrus zest (about 2 lemons or 1 grapefruit)

Directions

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch round cake pan or loaf pan. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, whisk together the dairy, eggs, oil, juice, and zest. Slowy mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until everything is just combined and no floury bits remain (lumps are fine, though).

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a tester or fork hakedinto the cake comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes for a cake pan, 50 to 60 minutes for a loaf pan. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes or so, then run knife around the edges to help release the cake before removing it from the pan. Glaze or soak the cake if desired (see Note) and store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days-if it lasts that long.

Notes

This is one of the easiest cakes out there (dump, stir, pour, bake) and oh-so-very flexible. When I first sent this recipe to my friends, we all went on a frenzy of citrus cake baking from North Carolina to Rhode Island to the Alpine village of Klosters, Switzerland. Over the the weekend, we churned out about a dozen variations (and not because I made them do it, but because the cake is that good, I swear). Everyone made their own version based on the citrus and dairy in their home at that moment, from lemon-vogiurt to orange-ricotta to grapefruit-crėme fraiche, and raves flew in from all locations. Whether you need to use up citrus, clear out some dairy products, or just bake a beautifully simple cake, this is the one for you.

If you have a bit of extra citrus juice to use up, comnbine it with a small amount of sugar to soak the cake or a large amount of sugar to glaze the top. To soak the cake, heat 4 cup juice with 1 tablespoon sugar until the sugar dissolves, then pour over the cake while still warm. To glaze the cake, whisk 2 to 3 tablespoons juice with 1 cup powdered sugar and drizzle over the cake once cool.

Source: Perfectly Good Food, by Margaret Li and Irene Li