The perfect last minute Easter cake recipe

While it may not always entail the dizzying hecticness of Christmastime, the days leading up Easter can certainly still be a very busy period in their own right, especially if you're hosting parties and/or having out-of-town guests staying with your for the holiday weekend.

Often, as the first glorious days of spring begin to emerge like blooms poking through the last vestiges of snow, so too do we yearn to head (run at break speed) outdoors once more and suddenly spending hours in the kitchen lacks the same appeal it did just a couple of short, freezing cold months ago.

Easter however, is a beautiful, important time of the year and a celebration that is not to go unmarked by many of us. Though we might not scamper around the house collecting chocolate eggs any more, that doesn't mean we're not entitled to a sweet treat of our own this weekend, too.

Keeping in mind that you may be busier than a bunny in a carrot patch, and/or that you might not feel the need to break your back over your holiday dessert, I went digging around Flickr and unearthed a thoroughly lovely vintage recipe from 1951 for Lemon Gold Cake that would be flat out fantastic for Easter.





{Cheerful, inviting, and absolutely scrumptious looking, this wonderful Lemon Gold Cake practically has the words "Easter dessert" written all over it! Image via tikitacky on Flickr. Click here for a larger version of this lovely 1950s cake recipe.}



The invigorating, tart, endlessly fresh taste of lemon and the return of spring go hand-in-hand like bluebirds and happiness, and are a must for this time of the year in my books. This cake looks like a total snap to whip up as is, but you could make things even easier on yourself and swap in your favourite cake mix, if so desired. I make a very similar cake with Betty Crocker's Gluten-Free Yellow cake mix and olive oil, which is always a hit with gluten and non-gluten eaters alike.

Aside from perhaps decorating the top of the cake with some candied lemon peel, candied (edible) flower petals, white chocolate curls, fresh raspberries, or in the spirit of the holiday, your favourite Easter candy, there isn't much I'd want to alter here. Cakes like this are classic, elegant, beautiful, and flat out delicious - no need to mess with decades of success.

Lemon is a crowd pleasing favourite that becomes all the more delectable and festively perfect when brought to the table in the form of an appealingly pretty yellow cake that echoes the sunlight we're finally starting to get blessed with again this fine Good Friday.

If you're not celebrating Easter of if you already have another dessert (or two!) in the works, fear not, this vintage recipe will serve you well all throughout the spring (wouldn't it be lovely for a Mother's Day tea or bridal shower?) and well on into the sizzingly hot summer days.

Have a blast baking and a truly wonderful Easter long weekend, my dears!