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Cakes
Lemon cake
Elia's Lemon Cake (Traditional Marche cake, using vegetable oil; flavored with the zest and juice of 1 lemon)
Originated from: Marche, Italy
Occasion: Special times
Contributed by: Micheline Di Gerolomo (her mother's recipe, Elia)

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Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 "large-sized" eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons Magic baking powder
1 lemon (zest and juice)

For dusting
about 1/8 cup icing sugar (optional)



Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F degrees.

2. Grease 9 inch tube pan.

3. Using an electric beater, beat eggs and sugar until creamy (about 4 minutes).

4. Add vegetable oil. Mix well.

5. Add juice (strained) and finely grated zest of 1 lemon.

6. Add flour and mix well.

7. Add Magic baking powder, mix well.

8. Pour batter in greased tube pan.

9. Bake for 45 minutes (or until cake is done).

10. Cool.

11. Turn upside down and dust with icing sugar before serving (optional).


Notes

Having tried the recipe, the lady who took the photo, Mary Melfi, can vouch that it is easy to do, and the results are rather heavenly.... Micheline Di Gerolomo recalls that back in the old days (the 1950s) when her mother first came to Canada she did not own a "tube" pan (Few Italians did!), so to get the desired hole in the center of the cake, her mother placed a greased Mason glass jar in a regular cake pan. Apparently, this improvisation resulted in a nice-looking cake. It's very likely the late Mrs. Di Gerolomo learned this trick in Italy where few, if any cooks, living in the countryside, had access to specialty cookware.

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