A few weeks ago I was photographing my friend Heather for an Instagram takeover she was doing for the Walnut Creek Anthropologie. While I was over she had some yummy food, including a lemon olive oil cake that was phenomenal. She mentioned that she used Ayesha Curry’s recipe (found here) and that it was super simple. Margaux also tried some of the cake and was adamant that we make it at home the very next day. I was having some friends over so we picked up a box of cake mix to go with our Farmer’s Market raspberries and we headed home.
When I was gathering all the ingredients I noticed I was an egg short. Welp. I did some googling and saw that you can sub fruit puree for an egg in some cases so I did just that! I pureed some of the raspberries (keeping just enough to top the cake) with some lemon juice and used 1/4 cup in place of one of the eggs. I still had about half a cup of puree left so I decided to use it for the glaze! I added the juice from another half lemon and then added sugar and blended in my little single serve smoothies blender for a smooth and silky glaze.
I crossed my fingers that the cake would come out all right and GUESS WHAT. It was even better than the original recipe. I love lemon and raspberry together and this was the perfect mix of tart lemon and distinct raspberry flavor. I was happy I had enough for two cakes because my friends polished off the first one. I think this would actually be incredible as a double layer cake with a cream cheese frosting middle and the raspberry glaze on top. There’s always next time…