Lidey Heuck is the author of Cooking in Real Life: Delicious & Doable Recipes for Every Day. The Pittsburgh native began her career in food working as Ina Garten’s assistant, a job she got as a college senior after cold-emailing the Barefoot Contessa. Since then, she has carved out a delicious space of her own, contributing to New York Times Cooking and sharing everything from recipes to ideas on home decor, entertaining, and travel on her Lidey Likes blog and Instagram.
Heuck grew up in Pittsburgh, where her uncles owned four restaurants and her grandfather entertained the family with big Italian dinners, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. While Heuck helped bus tables at the restaurants and cooked for fun in high school, occasionally trying new dishes at restaurants around town after she got her driver’s license, her interest in food was mostly casual. She’d watch the Food Network, look through her mom’s cookbooks, and eat lots of spaghetti and roast chicken. “I’m a cook, writer, and creator based in New York’s Hudson Valley. I’m a recipe contributor to New York Times Cooking and the creator of this very website. I began my career in East Hampton, working as Ina Garten’s assistant. In 2020, after seven years with the Barefoot Contessa family, I was ready for my next adventure and spent a summer season working for Erin French at The Lost Kitchen in Maine, where I appeared on The Lost Kitchen Show on Magnolia Network.”
“The idea for this cake came to me when I was thinking about Easter desserts. I associate lemon and coconut (and jelly beans) with Easter — especially big towering cakes covered in shredded coconut. Big deal cakes. I wanted to create a cake that incorporated my favorite Easter flavors but was a little more casual. The kind of cake you can keep on the counter and cut little pieces off throughout the day. The kind of cake you can tell yourself counts as breakfast food.”
“This is a hearty cake that travels and keeps really well. Wrap it with plastic wrap and store at room temperature or in the refrigerator, but bring the cake to room temperature before serving for optimal flavor. It is dangerously good with a cup of hot coffee or tea. And while this is meant to be a casual cake, it would still make a great Easter or holiday dessert. Serve it with whipped cream and fresh raspberries and no one will mind that you didn’t spend all weekend constructing a four-layer cake with an ornate coconut birds’ nest on top. Maybe next year.”
“This cake has been a consistently popular recipe on my site. But it’s always bothered me that the center of the cake sunk. So, as a January baking project, I decided to see if I could fix that once and for all. Five cakes later, and I figured it out. The cake is as moist, fluffy, and lemony as ever, it just stands a little taller. I updated the recipe below, but wanted to list the changes I made to avoid any confusion,” says Lidey.
I increased the baking powder from 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon.
