Triple Lemon Cake in Rice Cooker

It's been a long time away from my blog. After the event at the Korea Society earlier this month, I was catching up on other parts of my life. Now I feel like my fall schedule has finally begun, with a notch down on my subtitling work and more cooking related jobs and projects ahead. I enjoy the variety in my daily life and feel excited about this beautiful season.

And I'm back to baking cakes out of my rice cooker. This was served as a one-bite dessert at the Korea Society event, a surprise gift I had made for the participants at the K-Drama cooking class. I came out clean and told them they were also guinea pigs for this new recipe. Their positive response gave me the confidence to put this recipe on my blog.

I received a few beautiful lemons from Lemoneira, so that's what I used here. You can use lemons, or I imagine other citrus fruits could work well here. You can just make the cake alone, which is still a moist sponge cake with a subtle, bright flavor of lemon. If you're feeling playful and needing some extra projects, whip up the lemon buttercream frosting and dry lemon wheels to dress up this humble cake out of a rice cooker.

Depending on how big your rice cooker is, you could end up with a big, flat cake like mine from a 10-portion rice cooker. If the rice cooker is smaller, you'll have a smaller, taller cake. Feel free to cut the cake in half horizontally and slather the frosting all around like I did for the sake strawberry cake. Adjust the frosting recipe based on how much you want on your lemon cake. Enjoy!

Triple Lemon Cake

INGREDIENTS:
Lemon Sponge Cake
1 cup All-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Baking powder
4 Eggs, whites and yolks separated
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Neutral-tasting vegetable oil
plus a few drops to grease the rice cooker bowl
1~3 tablespoons Freshly squeezed lemon juice (from one lemon)
*Save 1 tablespoon if you're making lemon frosting
1 teaspoon Lemon zest (from one lemon)

Simple Lemon Buttercream Frosting
1/4 cup Unsalted butter (1/2 stick), room temperature
1 cup Confectioners' sugar (a.k.a. powdered sugar)
1 tablespoon Freshly squeezed lemon juice

Dried Lemon Slices for garnish
1 ~ 2 Lemons
2 ~ 4 tablespoons Confectioners' sugar

DIRECTIONS:

Lemon Sponge Cake
1. Grease the rice cooker bowl with vegetable oil by drizzling a few drops of oil in the rice cooker bowl then coating the entire inside of the rice cooker bowl with a pastry brush or a piece of paper towel.

2. Whisk together to mix flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside.

3. Whisk egg whites. When egg whites turn opaque white and foamy, add 1/4 cup of sugar and continue to whisk. When sugar has been incorporated and the egg foam starts turning glossy, add the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and continue to whisk. Stop when the egg foam is firm and silky-glossy. When you lift the whisk, the tip of the egg foam should gently fall, whish is about soft-medium peak.

4. In the order of the following ingredients, add and whisk gently to incorporate.

* Egg yolks

* Oil

* Lemon zest and lemon juice

5. Add the dry ingredients and fold in carefully with a spatula or a wooden spoon until there is no dry spot. Don't over mix.

6. Pour the batter into the rice cooker bowl. Set the 'steam' function for 40 minutes. If your rice cooker has a cake function, follow the instruction of your rice cooker. If you only have 'cook' and 'warm' functions, press the 'cook' button. You will have to 'cook' twice. This means that you'll press the 'cook' button again after the first time. You may need to wait until the rice cooker cools down before you 'cook' the second time.

7. When the cake is done, turn off the rice cooker. Leave it open in the rice cooker for about 5 minutes. Then remove the rice cooker bowl. Gently flip the rice cooker bowl on a cooling rack. Cool to room temperature.

8. You can eat the cake now. For a cake that's fully infused with the lemon flavor, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for a couple of hours to overnight before you taste. Enjoy it as is or garnish with lemon buttercream frosting (below) and dried lemon wheels (below).

Simple Lemon Buttercream Frosting
Leave out butter at room temperature until it softens. Whisk until butter becomes soft and fluffy. Add confectioners' sugar and lemon juice until completely mixed in. Add the frosting in a pastry bag and pipe out a dot on top of each bite-sized cake or feel free to smear all over the whole cake. If you are frosting the cake like the picture you see on top, you will only need about half of the recipe amount. But just an FYI, it's hard to mix and pipe the frosting if it's less than the amount specified in the recipe. Make use of it however you want to!

Dried Lemon Wheels
Preheat the oven at 200 F degrees. Wash the lemons thoroughly. Slice the lemons thinly and place them in one layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle confectioners' sugar generously on top of lemon wheels. Dry in the oven for 2 hours and check for doneness. It should be dry but sticky in the middle from sugar without turning dark. You may need to keep it in the oven for another 30 minutes.