EAST 62nd STREET LEMON CAKE

If there’s one name synonymous with great desserts, it’s Maida Heatter.
In fact, she’s often described as America’s “First Lady of Desserts.”

The recipe below for “East 62nd Street Lemon Cake” is her daughter’s creation. It’s become quite famous since being printed in the New York Times. The list of hosts and hostesses who keep it on hand at all times reads like a Who’s Who.

Cake
Fine dry bread crumbs
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 pound plain butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons grated lemon rind

Glaze
1/3 cup lemon juice
3/4 cup sugar.

Adjust rack one-third up from bottom of oven. Preheat to 350. Butter a 9×3 1/2-inch tube pan and dust it lightly with fine, dry bread crumbs.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. In large bowl of electric mixer cream the butter. Add sugar and beat 2-3 minutes. Beat in eggs individually, scraping bowl as necessary with a rubber spatula to keep mixture smooth.

On lowest speed, alternately add dry ingredients in three additions and milk in two additions, scrapping as necessary and beating only until smooth after each addition. Stir in lemon rind. Turn batter into prepared pan; level top by rotating pan briskly back and forth.

Bake 1 hour and 10-15 minutes until a cake tester comes out dry. Let cake stand in pan for about 5 minutes; then cover with a rack and invert. Remove pan, leaving cake upside down. Place over a large piece of aluminum foil or wax paper and prepare glaze of 1/3 cup lemon juice and 3/4 cup sugar.

Glaze should be used immediately after it is mixed. Stir juice and sugar and brush all over the hot cake until absorbed. Let cake cool completely. Transfer to a cake plate. Do not cut for at least several hours. Makes 10 portions.