Lemons

It is late afternoon on what has been a cold, windy day - great for drying the washing I hung out earlier but not a day I wanted to venture out into for long. I did drive to the village to pick up essential ingredients from our excellent deli to make a tiramisu to take to our friends house tomorrow night. I didn't linger though and was in, out and back home within half an hour. I just wanted to be at home and after listening to weather reports on the radio I think I will be close to home all weekend as bad weather is on the way with winds of 100kms an hour predicted. I guess the fluffy girls (cats) will want to stay inside too and I will finally get to restock my Sweet Mary lavender heart supply as well as fulfilling a couple of orders.
While thinking about tiramisu making I thought it might be nice to bake my hubbie's favourite cake, well one of them though he does always take care to tell me that he doesn't really have a sweet tooth....
He likes this Lemon-Syrup Loaf Cake, another good one from Nigella Lawson.

Preheat oven to 180C and butter and line a 23x13x7cm loaf tin.
Cream together 125g butter and 175g caster sugar. Add 2 eggs and zest of 1 lemon. Beat in well. Add 175g self-rairing flour and a pinch of salt. Fold in gently but thoroughly, then add 4 tablespoons milk. Spoon into prepared loaf tin. Bake in oven 35-45 mins until golden and cake-tester comes out clean. Puncture top of loaf all over with cake-tester and cover with syrup.
Syrup: About 4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice and 100g of icing sugar which is heated gently so sugar dissolves and quite syrupy.
If you can wait, leave it to cool but I couldn't and just had to have a slice. By the look of our laden lemon tree I will be able to make a lot more of these luscious lemon loaves. Having a lemon tree is one of the many things I love about living in New Zealand. When we lived in the UK the only lemons available were from the supermarket and they were never as juicy or ripe as the ones that grow just outside our kitchen.




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