Moist Almond Lemon Easter Cake (Gluten Free)

A light moist almond lemon Easter cake, covered with lemon syrup and decorated with macarons, chocolate eggs, sugared edible flowers and French mendiants.

Who loves lemon? We’ve been seeing such gorgeous lemons at the market recently, bringing their springy southern sunshine to Paris, that this Almond Lemon Easter Cake is giving us a bit of much needed zest at this time of year. It’s also ideal for pairing with chocolates in all shapes and sizes.

What fun it has been to put this simple, sticky cake together and dress it up with sugared edible flowers, macarons and Easter chocolates – just to be festive and celebrate Spring, following Macaron Day in Paris.

Take the decorations away and it’s still a luscious lemon cake in its own right at any time of year.

French Easter Chocolate Traditions

Why is there a chocolate hen nesting on the cake?

In the UK, we’re used to mainly chocolate eggs and Easter Bunny sculptures. In France, there are many more added to the traditional chocolate Easter parade – from supermarkets to the high-end Chocolatiers. These are hens, bells and fish.  For a more detailed explanation and a seasonal online tour around Paris, see my Parisian chocolate Easter displays.

Why French Easter Hens, Bells & Fish?

HENS: As hens continue to lay their eggs even during the 40-day Christian tradition of Lent when meat or eggs are not allowed to be eaten, Easter’s arrival signalling the end of Lent means that there are a lot of eggs to be used.

BELLS: Tradition has it that church bells fly to the Vatican in Rome on Good Friday (bells therefore don’t ring for 2 days) and return with chocolate to distribute on Easter Sunday after joyfully ringing in the Mass to celebrate Christ’s resurrection.

FISH: There are even more chocolate fish than usual this year, as Easter weekend falls on 1st April.  In France, April Fool’s Day is known as Poisson d’avril (April Fish) and any decently duped April Fool in France will probably be sporting a school of colourful paper fish taped to their back.

Chocolate Easter Mendiant Decorations

You’ll see all sorts of bags of dark, milk or white chocolate fritures, a mixture of fish, seafood and shell shapes. As I previously made Mendiants of Easter macaron bonnets, I couldn’t resist melting some white chocolate and sticking on some fritures with candied orange peel and toasted almonds.

What’s more, I used my silicone macaron mat (have you seen my review here?) to make them. Gently melt white chocolate in a bowl over simmering water (bain marie) until 3/4 melted, quickly take it off the heat and stir to melt the rest of the chocolate, and leave for 5 minutes to cool.

Spoon into the macaron circles (or simply onto baking parchment) and as soon as the chocolate appears to set (about 10 minutes later), quickly press in candied fruit, nuts and miniature chocolate eggs or friture. Leave in a cool place for about 20 minutes then peel off the mendiants.

How to Make Edible Sugared Flowers

Pick some untreated, clean edible flowers such as primoses, primula, winter pansies or violas, lightly brush with egg white from back to the fronts of the flowers, then sprinkle lightly with caster sugar. Leave to dry in a cool, dry place and use within a month.

For the macarons, use the recipes that are in either of my books, Mad About Macarons or Teatime in Paris!

Gluten Free Moist Lemon Cake

This recipe uses cornflour instead of flour, making the cake extra light – and gluten free. The addition of ground almonds or almond flour makes this cake extra scrumptious and moist.

I used a cake mould of 23cm diameter but any similar-sized cake tin will work well.  Ensure that your lemon is unwaxed before grating the zest.  If not, pour over boiling water and brush off the wax with a clean kitchen brush and pat dry on kitchen paper.

Almond Lemon Easter Cake – Recipe