seventy-seven

madeira cake

 

Madeira cake was always a favourite of my mum's when we were little.  As children we always preferred victoria sponge but I do now understand the simple pleasure of madeira cake.

 Preheat your oven to 170C/325F/gas mark 3, and prepare a 13 x 23cm (5x9 inches) loaf tin.

You will need:

240g / 8oz  soft unsalted butter

200g / 7oz golden caster sugar

3 free range eggs

200g / 7oz self raising flour

100g / 3½oz plain flour

zest (finely grated) and juice of 1 lemon

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.  Then sit in the lemon zest.   Beat the eggs in a separate bowl and add a little at a time to the butter and sugar.  Alternate with a spoonful of flour to stop the mixture curdling.  Gently stir in the remaining flour and then the lemon juice.   Pour the mixture into your prepared tin and bake in the oven for about 1 hour.  Allow the cake to cool in the tin before you turn it out.   

This is a good recipe to add to according to your tastes.  You can leave out the lemon and just have it as a rich butter cake, or swap the lemon zest and juice for orange.  Poppy seeds are alway a good match with lemon and my eldest daughter likes to leave out the lemon and add glace cherries.  I'd love to hear any other variations. 

smitten

 There are few things I love more than a a piece of homemade cake, accompanied by a cup of tea of course.  Poppy seed and lemon is a particularly good combination but I have tried many recipes for lemon and poppyseed cake and they were all lacking something.  But now the long search is over, and I am smitten. The recipe for this slice of heaven came courtesy of Smitten Kitchen.   It is rich with butter, heady with lemon and dark with poppy seeds  - a perfect summer cake.  As it seems that Smitten Kitchen and I share a common view on what we require from a good cake I may have to work my way through the cake recipes on her site.  In the interests of research of course! 
I would like to have shown you a picture of it's rich seedy interior but the cake was a gift for our hosts on Sunday and I think they have thought me a little more odd than usual if I had brought it along with a slice taken out.