A Lemon Cake That Cuts to the Pith

Just checked the recipe online and it’s been corrected. Now step 3 says “Stir in almond meal, flour.,,,

@r j berson ARGH!! I made this cake and accidentally omitted the regular flour due to the way the recipe was written. No wonder it just didn't seem right. The cake was about one inch high. Honestly, considering the labor to make this cake, the results just don't justify it. I love the technique of boiling the lemons and putting them in the blender, though. That was a novel technique.

@Ann very bottom of the article is a link 'Recipe: Lemon Almond Cake with Lemon Glaze'

@Ann: Behind a paywall ...

@BigGuy You're doing the best thing for the environment going digital. First off: know what you are paying for. You automatically have the option of saving every recipe to the Times 'recipe box', where you can collect/organize and revisit every recipe you save there. Highly recommend. You can also 'save for later', which is a personal digital collection of items you have chosen to 'save for later', so you can read it whenever you want--repeatedly. Not just recipes, but articles, etc. Finally, the recipe is always linked at the end of the article. In this case 'Recipe: Lemon Almond Cake with Lemon Glaze' is the link title.

@Lissa. The point is that everything you mention as being a feature of the subscription was not too long ago available to EVERYone who had a digital subscription.

@Lissa: Earlier this morning, when you clicked on the link for the recipe at the bottom of the article, a box came up asking you to subscribe to the Food Section, while was recently made a separate subscription. So not everyone was seamlessly able to access the recipe. It only now seems to be available. Also, as I recall, when the separate Food subscription was instituted, you lost access to your personalized "recipe box," if you didn't go along with the separate subscription.

@Jessica So true! We make it a lot in the winter and you can substitute bergamot, lemons, oranges, just about any citrus has worked well for us. But the bergamot is the standout for sure.

@Mopar yes! Trader Joe's has almond flour, and also they have the best prices on nuts in general. How I envy that you're in NY: I though all TJ's were like those, until I moved to New Orleans and realized the excellent service and crew members weren't a national brand standard.

@Mopar Some almond meal (sometimes inaccurately labeled "flour" or "meal/flour") contains a lot of the brown skin and is very coarse. It's OK in cookies and some other things, but in my opinion, not in most cake. Trader Joe's has started to offer both that and fine almond flour, which is also available online from King Arthur and elsewhere--do an internet search. Bob's Red Mill also has superfine almond flour. For a treat, try the more expensive hazelnut meal--again, it contains some nut skins, which will make the resulting product darker and less smooth.

Any health food market will have it, but here in the boonies even our local, and awful, grocery store chain, Stop ‘n Shop, carries it, albeit in the health food section.

@observer Well said. A much more polite version of my thoughts on this matter. Thank you.

@observer I agree that it's wrong to let everyone read the article but block the recipe. The bean counters at The Times are not doing a good job because they have not thought about how readers would react to this. As a longtime subscriber to the online NYT @ $15 every 4 weeks, which works out to more than $15 per month, I was beyond irritated to learn that I would have to pay $1.50 per week to see recipes, having already refused to pay extra to access puzzles. I would have preferred that they increase the price for everyone by a dollar every 4 weeks rather than compartmentalizing special interests and squeezing more money out of us. How about charging $1.50 a week to see sports articles, which I ignore? So far I have resisted signing up.

@observer I too used to feel a similar annoyance and irritation. It seems that a mindset of "ala carte" charging, regardless of the service, has been the new and accepted norm these past few years. I recently had a crown done on a tooth. Even though the dentist billed the insurance company for a one lump sum, he billed me for every little step of the 3 appointment procedure, hoping I wouldn't notice and would end up paying him more money. As for NYT articles, I reached a point where the cost of a full subscription was well worth it for me. I love Melissa Clark, Frank Bruni and every article that is printed in the Times. This subscription is my one expensive vice. I realize that everyone and situation is different. I also understand the frustration of not getting a recipe after reading about it. But for me it came down to choice - I garner the ability to have full access to all of the NYT articles over feeling the financial pinch of its cost. I would rather get the stuff for free, but those days seem to be gone forever.

@ WWD Boston I would not eat this lemon cake with such a big fork, as in the photo, but use a smaller fork and knife. Also, the cup with the brown liquid in it -- presumably coffee -- would have looked better on a saucer.

@WWD Thanks for your comment - this type of cake is very well known - I would have thought there would have been some proper acknowledgment of its provenance by the author of this article. I am a digital subscriber, and find it quite infuriating to be cut off from recipes I want to save, like other people who have commented here. e

@ Jan Laidlaw Australia I fully sympathise with the feeling of frustration that you, observer FL Oct. 19, and the several replying to him express about the recipes by subscription only. But there must be many Internet sites where similar recipes are freely available and can be modified by imaginable cooks, who readers of this Section also. I apologise for frasing my comment above somewhat negatively. I meant, I would love to taste Ms. Clark's lemon cake, but not with the big table fork as in the picture.