Alison Roman's lemony turmeric tea cake

Lemony turmeric tea cake. Try saying that 5 times fast!

In March 2020, I had the opportunity to assist Alison Roman in a beautiful kitchen at a home on the Battery in Charleston, SC during Charleston Wine + Food. Alison Roman is a New York Times Cooking columnist and a frequent contributor to Bon Appetit Magazine.

Alison's book, "Nothing Fancy", is pure gold. Alison is unfussy, and prefers to call entertaining "having people over". She uses what she has on hand and worships imperfections in the kitchen as the secret ingredient to a fun gathering. I ate half the tea cake on one sitting, and don't feel bad about it. At all.

Photograph by Michael Graydon / Nikole Herriott / NYT / Redux

I made this tea cake for my first time yesterday, and had so much fun doing so with my sweet roommate. One of the steps requires mixing lemon zest with sugar with your fingers. Lemon + sugar? Yes, please. Our little Charleston apartment still smells like lemon. Thanks, Alison Roman! The cake is simple yet exciting, with the interesting addition of Greek yogurt. Turmeric is so ~on trend~, so I felt like one of the "cool kids" incorporating it. You may notice the yellow napkin in my picture above. It is my nana's. She can't cook anymore, but she gave me her napkins, which are my precious treasures!

Check out her recipe on the New York Times website here: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020637-lemony-turmeric-tea-cake

You can purchase her books anywhere books are sold. Here is Alison Roman's website with more information: https://www.alisoneroman.com

Let me know if you make the cake! Did you use sour cream or Greek yogurt?

xo,

Lauren Furey