Challenge 28: lemon cake

[el_staplador]

The book calls this 'summer lemon cake', but it's January and I'm in the Northern hemisphere, so...

Ingredients

3 eggs
90g/3oz caster sugar
60g/2oz plain flour
30g/1oz cornflour
30g/1oz butter
grated rind of one lemon


Equipment

round cake tin, 20cm/8"
greaseproof paper
saucepan or two
heatproof mixing bowl (I just about got away with a pudding basin. Just about.) that will fit over the saucepan in such a manner that you can remove it easily when it's hot.
whisk (essential - I used a rotary whisk, which was just about manageable. We don't have an electric whisk. I wouldn't have liked to try it with a balloon whisk or anything less technologically advanced)
sieve
spatula
wire rack
oven
hob


Method

Preheat the oven to 180degC/350degF/gas 4. Grease and line the cake tin.

Heat water in the saucepan. When it boils, turn it down to simmer. Add the eggs and sugar to the mixing bowl and put it over the pan of simmering water. Whisk until thick and pale.

Remove from the heat and keep whisking. Meanwhile, melt the butter (I did this by tipping out the water from the saucepan and using the residual heat, though had I been making this for company I might have used a second pan). When the egg mixture gets thick enough that the whisk leaves a trail when you take it out of the mixture, sift the flour and cornflour over the surface and add the butter and lemon rind. Fold in with the spatula (I found that the flour all sank to the bottom so I had to fold in quite thoroughly), pour the mixture into the prepared tin, and bake for 35-40 minutes. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.


After all that whisking I couldn't face making the icing as instructed ('beat 5oz butter until fluffy' was the least of it) so just made up some glacé icing with the lemon juice, but a more buttery icing would have worked better. It definitely needs something to keep it moist.

Challenge 28: Cake - Mincemeat Cake

[norfolkian]

I'm not much of a baker, but I do still have leftover mincemeat from Christmas, so when I saw the challenge this week was cake, I knew what to do.

My mincemeat is homemade: here is the recipe. I heartily recommend it. 

The recipe for the cake I used is here. I didn't change too much because I'm not a very confident baker, but I did use some mixed dried fruit rather than 75g sultanas as the recipe suggests because the mixed fruit was actually cheaper. And I used caster sugar because that's what I had in the cupboard.

Here is the cake:





It's yummy - I had a big slice after dinner with some whisky. :) I think it could have done with a little less time in the oven because it came out quite crunchy round the edges, but other than that it is fine.