Swedish Visiting Cake

For years and years I’ve kept a recipe in my back pocket. Not literally of course, but it’s a recipe that I can pull out to serve to family/friends at a few moments notice. It’s quick & sweet and can be dressed up in a variety of ways. It’s called Hot Milk Cake and up until this week it has been my go-to quick dessert. A few days ago I discovered this little beauty in one of my favorite cook books (Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours).

It’s called a Swedish Visiting Cake. It took me maybe 7 minutes to mix everything up (by hand! No need to haul out your mixer) and another 33 minutes in the oven and we had ourselves a delightfully simple, lemon-almond cake. I paired it with some fresh berries and a bit of whipped cream and it was a just-right dessert for a spring luncheon.

I do so love to use my cast iron skillet, and I was happy to pull it out for this cake. The skillet gave the cake a gorgeous light brown crust and just enough crispness around the edges. If you don’t have a cast iron skillet no worries – the recipe gives you options. The original recipe also calls for sliced almonds to be sprinkled on the top which I think would be fantastic, but I didn’t have any on hand.

Here’s a link to the recipe (there’s a print option in the top right corner of the link) and maybe I’ll get around to sharing my recipe for Hot Milk Cake soon. Maybe.