Life, since the lockdown, has slowed down. Dawn, dusk, repeat. It seems pointless to remember which day of the week it is… and more important that each should bring a small celebration. Maybe making coffee, sipped in the garden, a little more poetic. Or painting little hearts on white pebbles and leaving them in the forest to make people smile. Routine is not necessarily boring, mind you: we made it mandatory to bake a cake every single morning. The house fills up with scents of cinnamon, caramelised fruit, melting chocolate chips… Today was quite a success – the best lemon drizzle cake we had ever tasted. Light in texture, citrusy, a sherbet-like icing… Just divine. The original recipe being in French, I could not resist translating it for you!
Ingredients:
– 200g of self-raising flour
– 3 eggs
– 3 lemons
– 120g soft brown sugar
– 30g + 50g icing sugar
– 150g butter
– a knob of butter + 10g flour for the loaf tin
You just need to…
– Heat your oven to 180C
– Break the eggs in a large bowl, add the sugar and beat together until pale and creamy
– Add half the flour and mix
– Melt the butter, add to the mix with the remaining flour, mix once more.
– Add the 30 g icing sugar and mix.
– Add the zest of a lemon, the juice of 2 lemons and combine: the dough will double in size
– Butter a loaf tin, add a little flour all around, remove the excess and spoon the mixture in
– Bake 30 to 40mn or until a thin skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean
– Leave in the tin until completely cool, then remove
– Mix the icing sugar with a little lemon juice until you get a pourable but not too liquid paste
– Pour on the cake, lick your fingers, decorate with edible flowers
My tip: add just a little gin to that icing!
