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This week on The Great DPPL Bake-Along:

We bake lemon cakes, Sansa Stark’s favorite treat from A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin.

We’ll share our results, our recipes, and a little bit about our chosen stories on this blog.

AND we invite YOU to bake along with us.

Share what you make by tagging us with #DPPLBakes, send us your favorite recipes, or just enjoy reading our entries.

The Book: 

"Sansa," Lady Alerie broke in, "you must be very hungry. Shall we have a bite of boar together, and some lemon cakes?"
"Lemon cakes are my favorite," Sansa admitted. 
"So we have been told," declared Lady Olenna, who obviously had no intention of being hushed. "That Varys creature seemed to think we should be grateful for the information."

-A Storm of Swords (book 3) by George R.R. Martin

Sansa Stark has always been one of my favorite Game of Thrones characters (and not just because she’s a fellow redhead). 

She transforms from a selfish, meek girl to the resilient and powerful Queen of the North. Her journey has been plagued with unthinkable tragedies, but seeing her overcome them and grow into a strong, confident leader will always inspire me. 

So for this bake-along, I couldn’t possibly pass up the chance to make Sansa’s favorite treat. In the books, lemon cakes are an expensive dessert often enjoyed by upperclass noblewomen. It reminds Sansa of the refined and sophisticated life she longs to have.

Lucky for us lemon will remain a popular flavor no matter what century.

There are tons of lemon cake recipes out there, but I picked the one that looked the most delicious to me. It's from The Gingered Whisk and includes candied lemons and a tasty glaze. You can find it here.

INGREDIENTS 

Candied Lemons: 

• 2 cups sugar
• 1.5 cups water
• Thinly sliced lemons

Lemon cakes: 

• 2.5 cups flour
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp of baking powder & baking soda 
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 

• 2 tbsp lemon zest
• 3 tbs lemon juice  
• 1 cup softened butter
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1.25 sugar
• 2 eggs

Lemon Glaze:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup lemon juice

INSTRUCTIONS

• Start with the candied lemons. Slice lemons and combine sugar and water in a lage shallow pot. Add lemons and simmer for 15 mins. 
   
• Preheat oven to 350F. 
• Beat butter and sugar together before adding in eggs one at a time. 
• Add lemon zest, lemon juice, and vanilla extract. 
• Stir in flour, baking powder baking salt, and regular salt until just combined. (This is important! Do not overmix or your cakes will turn out overly chewy and break apart.)
• Mix in buttermilk.
• Spray 12-hole muffin tin with baking spray and place candied lemon at the bottom of each well. 
• Pour in batter on each candied lemon and bake for 15-20 mins or until golden.
• Remove from oven, let cool, and flip over so candied lemons are on top. 
• In a separate bowl, mix powdered sugar and lemon juice for glaze. Drizzle on top and enjoy!

I was nervous for this bake because I’ve never made lemon cakes before. I was afraid they would turn out bad (I'm talking Season 8 of Game of Thrones bad). However, the floury mess in my kitchen was worth it because the cakes came out amazing! The lemon flavor was there but it wasn’t too strong or tart. They were super fluffy and I had to stop myself from eating six in a row.

Some things to note:  

1. Spray the muffin tin extremely well! Even the top part of it. You want to make it as easy as possible for the cakes to come out.
2. The candied lemons are STICKY and hard to eat. But they do look beautiful on top of the lemon cakes! I say they’re great for decoration but I wouldn’t advise eating them unless you want your teeth to hurt. 
3. There was a TON of batter left after filling a 12-cup muffin tin. I just poured the remaining batter into a loaf pan which took a good 40 minutes to bake.

Overall, I really loved this recipe and I will definitely be making it again! (It's also the perfect way to comfort yourself if you ever decide to watch the terrible series finale again).

You can check out A Song of Ice and Fire series as ebooks or eaudiobooks on OverDrive.

We hope you enjoyed this edition of The Great DPPL Bake-Along.

Check back in two weeks for another delicious installment!