LEMON DRIZZLE CAKE
I remember when I was in primary school we used have a number of bake sales throughout the year. I can't quite remember why we had them but I do have memories of me and my mum sat in the kitchen cooking up a storm, making a complete mess as well as sweet smelling treats that I proudly placed on the bake sale table next to all the other cakes. After we moved to Nigeria for a bit we never did any more baking which kind of sucked but I quickly got over it as, I guess, I was easily distracted back then. Fast forward a little more than a dozen years - the vain version of me weeps at the thought of getting older - and the desire to bake has done more than make itself at home in my hands, mind and heart. It has given me yet another creative outlet that fills me with so much joy, inspiration, confidence and energy that it renders the happiness-draining power of all the crappy things happening in my life powerless.
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In this week's Movie Mondays post I mentioned that a made a Lemon Drizzle cake. It was my mate, Mercy's birthday on Good Friday and I thought instead of buying a cake I would bake one. So, after work on Thursday I dashed into town to pick up a few things I thought I'd need to whip up an edible Lemon Drizzle cake. This was my first unsupervised venture into the world of baking so I was quite nervous and excited. I chose to make a Lemon Drizzle cake because I remembered watching Tanya Burr and Zoella's video on how to make it a few months ago and it did not look hard to recreate. All I can say is it was so much fun to do that I gave myself a light smack on the hand for being so scared all these years and wasting valuable time that could have been spent perfecting this wonderful skill.
What you need For the cake: 3 eggs, 170g of Self-Raising Flour, 170g of Caster Sugar, 170g of butter, 1 tsp of Baking Powder and the zest of 2 lemons.
For the drizzle: 110g of Icing Sugar and the juice of 2 lemons.
Method
The cake: Add all the ingredients listed above in a bowl and whisk away. Pour contents into your loaf tin (if it is a non-stick tin feel free to line it with a little bit of butter or use a baking sheet) and place it in your oven which should be set to 180 oC. Leave it in for about 30-45 mins. To check if it is done, poke the loaf with a knife or skewer and if no cake batter sticks to it when you lift it out of the cake then the cake is ready to be taken out of the oven. Poke the loaf in several places, pour your drizzle all over the loaf and allow it to be absorbed by the lemon cake. Grab a knife and a plate and dig in!
The drizzle: Add the ingredients listed above in a bowl and whisk away. This can be done whilst your cake is in the oven.
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I know my excuse back in the day was that I can't whip up any baked treat at the snap of my fingers because I did not have all the tools and/or money to make it happen. And if this is the excuse you use too then I say try and acquire the core utensils you'd need over time and before you know it you will be ready to go! Trust me guys, this particular recipe was ridiculously easy to follow. If I can do it and create an amazing edible Lemon Drizzle cake that was loved by the birthday girl then you sure as heck can too. And to those of you that are seasoned bakers, if you have a food blog please leave your links below. I would really love to check them out and add more recipes to my ever growing list of ones to try.
What have you baked recently?
Mo xx
P.S. Great British Bake Off beware. There is and eager newbie baker on the loose haha ;)