A ciambellone is a simple, sunny Italian tea cake with lemon zest and a rich crumb typically baked in a tube pan, which gives it a torus shape, i.e. the appearance of a doughnut, which is, in fact, what Google Translate tells me is the translation of ciambellone. As I can never resist the siren call of either an everyday cake or a doughnut, I am unequivocally here for this.

When someone told me last month the version at Caffe Marchio — which is described as a “rich, Italian-style bundt with a lemon glaze” — is one of her favorite cakes, and even found the recipe on the internet for me (subtle hint, there), my first thought was: but wait I already have a lemon cake that I know and love. Ina Garten’s assertively lemony lemon pound cake is a Top 5-level cake classic; you bring it to housewarmings, as host gifts, to teachers; everyone loves it. So, I broke the recipes out into proportions and found that the Caffe Marchio version uses oil instead of butter, more of it, a bit more sugar too, a combination of mascarpone and yogurt instead of buttermilk, and a lot less lemon. Why should I make a more rich, more sweet, and more mildly flavored cake than one I already like, you might ask? I mean, I did. So, I made them both, fully doubting that there was anything new worth needing to know in the land of citrusy tube cakes, and the ciambellone stopped me in my tracks.

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