Daffodil season is here! I try to celebrate as many seasonal delights as possible through the year, and I think that Spring should have a new sub-season - let’s call it Daffodil Week. They are the brightest, cheeriest harbingers of warmer weather, and right now in my area they are at their peak. I especially love when they appear along my regular routes in places I’d forgotten they would be. They are sunshine in plant form, and who can’t get behind that?
Old cookbooks are one of my many loves in life, and when I found this recipe for Daffodil Cake a few months ago in the Dutch Oven Cookbook from Lunenburg, I knew that I had to make it for Daffodil Week. We had company over on the weekend, and although Adam knew one person in the couple, neither of us knew the other. I knew neither, and was hoping that the cake would be appreciated. It was.
It was lovely - there is nothing else quite like the feeling of making new friends, especially as an adult. It has the same feeling as Spring - that sense of energizing expansion and openness and realizing that there is so much out there in the world. We had a lovely visit and all enjoyed the cake for dessert. (I made a variation of Sophie Christinel’s spring soup for the main dish, using what I had on hand. I made it a few weeks ago more exactly following her recipe, and it is SO delicious. Can’t recommend it enough.) I love feeding company.
Daffodil Cake is a light, fluffy cake, much like an angel food cake in texture. There’s only one cup of flour in the whole cake, so it’s not one that will leave you feeling heavy and over-full. The yolks of six eggs are the base of one part of the batter, the whites the other. They layer into this delightful yellow and white magic that is just perfect. I served it with ice cream and a drizzle of black currant sauce that I had in the freezer from the garden last year; the next day I had to have another slice to see if whipped cream would be as good, and it was - I actually preferred it to the ice cream. Happy Spring!
Daffodil Cake
Adapted from Dutch Oven: a Cook Book of coveted, traditional Recipes from the Kitchens of Lunenburg, recipe from E Anderson (Mrs Roseville)
Yellow batter:
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp water
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp lemon extract
Preheat oven to 350. Grease, flour, and line a 9” round cake pan with parchment (this is a very sticky cake). Beat egg yolks with sugar and water on medium speed of stand mixer for 15 minutes using the whisk attachment. It will become light in colour, velvety and glossy. Add flour, baking powder, and lemon extract, and mix until incorporated. Pour into baking pan.
White batter:
6 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp vanilla
Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add sugar, salt, flour, cream of tartar, and vanilla, mix until combined. Spread over top of yellow batter. Bake for 40 minutes; cake will be fluffy and golden. Cool in cake pan for 20 minutes, run a knife around the edge, and carefully turn out to finish cooling on a wire rack. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream, and a drizzle of tart sauce - lemon or raspberry are lovely if you don’t have gooseberries or black currants. It would also be lovely with fresh berries. Enjoy during Daffodil Week or any other time of year!