lemon drizzle

Wholemeal Lemon Drizzle Cake

2 Comments / The Ordinary Cook /

This is the cake I made to take with me to feed the people who came along to listen to me talk about the difference that fresh milling your flour can make to your bread and cakes at Ludlow Food Festival a couple of weeks ago. I took my KOMO table top mill with me along with a selection of grains grown organically at Green Acres Farm just up the road from me in Shifnal, Shropshire and some that you can buy from Bakerybits. It is getting easier to buy grain from a farmer not too far away from you, so if you fancy buying a flour mill there are more and more options for sourcing a wide variety of grain. Take a look at UK Grain Lab’s page for a list of farmers that want to sell direct to you.

You don’t need to mill your flour just before using it though. I have used spelt grain this time but it works well with any wheat grain that you have and it will also work great with any wholemeal flour that you can get your hands on. Spelt is a lovely flour to bake with and I have been using it in place of plain flour in recipes for a few years now. You can get Doves Farm wholemeal spelt from most supermarkets these days. There are also lots of opportunities to buy it online.

If you want to learn more about freshly milling your flour you can read about it here on my Veg Patch Kitchen page or come along to one of my classes.

This cake is beautifully light and gorgeously lemony.

225g soft unsalted butter,
225g caster sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
4 eggs,
225g spelt or plain wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder

For the drizzle:
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 2 lemons
85g caster sugar

Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade or Gas Mark 6, or use the baking oven of the 4 oven Aga. Grease or line a 2lb loaf tin.

Place the butter, sugar and lemon zest in a mixing bowl and whisk until fluffy and light. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well between each addition. Sieve the flour and the baking powder over the mixture, making sure you add any bran left in the sieve. Use a large spoon to carefully fold the flour into the mixture.

Place the batter into the tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 45-60 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Whilst the cake is cooking mix the ingredients for the drizzle together. As soon as the cake comes out of the oven make holes all over the cake and spoon the drizzle mixture all over. Leave in the tin for ten minutes and then turn out and cool on a wire rack.

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Lemon, poppy seed and almond cake

3 Comments / cake, The Ordinary Cook /

Lemon and poppy seed cake

I am baking this for tomorrow’s bread making evening class. I have been meaning to make a poppy-seed cake for ages and just not got round to it. I love the way the tiny black dots glisten amongst the soft cake. Poppy seeds always make me smile to myself. The first time I put a bread roll  adorned with poppy seeds in front of my eldest, she just stared at it for a long time. I wondered what she was thinking so I asked her if she was ok. “What are these mummy?” she asked pointing to the top of the roll. “Poppy seeds, darling”, “Oh, I thought they were beetles”.  I promise that no beetles were harmed in the making of this cake.

If you don’t want to use ground almonds then just use 175g of flour instead. You need four lemons for this cake. Don’t be fooled by it saying three lemons  in the first section. But if you only have three lemons in the house then no harm will come to the cake if you just use the zest of 2 lemons in the cake itself.

For the cake

175g softened butter
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
Zest of 3 lemons
Juice of 1 lemon
125g self-raising flour
50g ground almonds
2 tbsp poppy seeds

For the syrup

Juice of 2 lemons
Zest of 1 lemon
50g granulated sugar
50g icing sugar
1 generous teaspoon poppy seeds

Method
Grease or line a 2lb loaf tin. Preheat the oven to 180°c, gas mark 4 or bake in the middle of the baking oven of the Aga.

Beat together the butter and the caster sugar until fluffy and lighter in colour. I find that if I use an electric whisk to get things started and then go in with my hand like a claw I get a much fluffier mixture. The heat of your hands makes the difference. Add the eggs one at a time and beat thoroughly between additions. Add the lemon zest, juice, flour, ground almonds and poppy seeds and fold in with a large spoon until evenly combined. Spoon the mixture evenly into the tin and bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes until the cake is golden and a skewer comes out clean.

Whilst the cake is baking, mix together the ingredients for the syrup.

As soon as the cake comes out of the oven use a skewer to pierce all over and deeply into the cake. Spoon the syrup evenly over the cake. Leave to cool completely in the tin.

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