Double Lemon Drizzle Cake with Poppy Seeds

The hot weather this month inspired me to bake a cake that is fresher than you average chocolate concoction and so I went for a lemon drizzle with a difference. I love lemon and poppy seed muffins so thought that I would try out this similarly flavoured cake from Delia. The recipe can be found here. I bought the biggest and poshest lemons I could find. Also, I made this bake at my baking assessor/mentor Rodina’s Liverpool flat.

Method

The recipe is a standard all in one with lemon zest, lemon juice and poppy seeds added in. A lemony syrup made of lemon juice and sugar is poured over the cake when it’s still warm. Finally more sugar and poppy seeds are sprinkled over the top.

Results

The flavour of this cake was VERY lemony. However if I was to make it again I would make quite a few changes. Firstly, although the recipe called for large lemons, I think the ones we got were far too large. This meant that the mixture was very sloppy. Also the flour that we used was from a basics range. I’d never noticed the difference before, but this stuff was really fine which I think also added to the thinness of the batter. This meant that the cake didn’t rise that much, and with the excess syrup it got very crumbly. We didn’t have a loaf tin either so I had to make the cakes in two smaller round tins. Finally I think that there were far too many poppy seeds in/on it.

Score: 5/10

Soundtrack: The build up to the Wimbledon Men’s Final (Go Andy!)

Plain Buns with Lemon Icing

For my first bake I thought I’d start with the basics with a tried and tested recipe (passed down to me from my mum). I did attempt to mix it up a bit with some lemon flavour icing sugar that I spotted on my last trip to the supermarket and by having a go at piping.

Recipe

Plain Sponge

(Makes 12 buns)

4oz Self raising flour

4oz Caster sugar

4oz Butter

2 Eggs

1tsp Baking Powder

1tsp Vanilla essence

Lemon Icing

125g Lemon icing sugar

100g Butter

3tbsp Water

Results

The buns did not turn out as I had expected. My new ‘Great British Bake Off’ mixing bowl did not work its magic in this case. The sponge was quite dense and stodgy and very bland. The blandness is easy to explain – I simply forgot the vanilla essence. The consistency, I think, owes itself to the fact I used medium eggs not large so the batter was quite thick. The buns also ended up cooking with this strange bobble in the middle. But at least I know the oven in my new house seems to work well and I have been reminded that I need to buy cooling rack.

I followed the instructions on the back of the icing sugar packet to make the butter icing. There wasn’t enough by far to cover all 12 buns and it was quite thick and very buttery. However, I enjoyed piping the icing (but not cleaning out the bag after) and think I will continue to have a go with that.

Overall score: 4/10

Soundtrack: Ed Sheeran +, Ed Sheeran