Albanian desserts seem to focus mostly on fruit, compotes are particularly popular. Other common Middle Eastern desserts, such as baklava, have also made their way to Albania. I don't like compotes, I hate baklava, and I couldn't really find any other recipes for Albanian desserts so I settled into baking a cake. The recipes I found didn't sound too great, and indeed this recipe wasn't very good. The cake was a dry and just plain boring.

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Marga's Albanian Walnut Cake with Lemon Glaze

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/3 cup plain yogurt

1/3 cup buttermilk

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 TBS lemon rind, grated

1 cup toasted walnuts, chopped

Glaze:

3/4 cup water

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1/4 tsp ground allspice

dash of ground cloves

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl. Add eggs. Mix. In a separate bowl, combine yogurt and buttermilk. In yet another bowl, sift together flour, powder and soda. Add yogurt-mix and flour-mix alternatively to the butter mixture, blending well. Add lemon grind and cinnamon. Mix well.

Butter a 9"x13" baking pan. Pour batter and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean.

Make the glaze by simmering together all the ingredients, covered, for about 15 minutes. When the cake is done, remove it from the oven, turn the oven off, pour the glaze over the hot cake, and return it to the oven for about 10 minutes.

From the Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant cookbook