I made this for dessert on Christmas day. The original plan had been to make cupcakes, but much like deciding to make waffles instead of cinnamon rolls, I wanted to simplify. So instead I paged through Smitten Kitchen Keepers and decided to make the Whole Lemon Poppyseed Cake.

Like her Whole Lemon Bars, this recipe uses a whole lemon blitzed in the food processor. And in this case since there’s no crust to make, you can make the whole thing in either a food processor or a blender, which was fun.

Mine was cooked through in about 30 minutes but didn’t brown on the top at all. I put it back in for 5 minutes to see if it would start browning, but it did not. I think my oven wasn’t keeping the temperature well, which happens from time to time. (The pilot light is kind of finicky.) In addition to not being browned it’s a bit denser than I expected, but since mine hadn’t risen the way Deb’s did that’s not surprising.

This was good but is just a smidge more bitter than I want. I’m not sure if that was my lemon, my oven, or just the way of this cake. If I make it again I might try adding a little more sugar, or planning for it to be more of a snacking cake rather than a dessert.