There’s something very nice about a plain cake to have with a cup of coffee or tea. A plain and simple cake with a single flavour… no huge amounts of whipped cream and jam… just something to have with a hot drink. Something to change a snatched drink and a quick pause from work into a relaxing break.
Easy enough to make, as well…. I had an old recipe that I thought I might do – hence the measurements being in ounces… I have converted them because I can’t, for the life of me, work out how to get my digital scales to switch from grams to ounces.
I thought a nice plain cake with perhaps a lemon glaze would be good…
Start off by heating the oven to 180 degrees then mix
310g /11 oz caster sugar
56g/2 oz butter
3 egg yolks (you use the whites later)
Get everything mixed together
See, it is still grainy here… keep going until it is smooth.. then add 225g/8 oz of yoghurt –
Zest a lemon and add that to the mix
Stir it in gently – don’t overbeat things at this stage, then fold in 170g/6 oz self raising flour
Then whisk the egg whites
And carefully fold them into the cake mix… start with a spoonful first to get the mix broken up slightly and then add more
There you are, done.
All you have to do now is pour that into a cake tin – a springform is best as you can get the cake out easily afterwards, and popping in a paper cakeliner makes it the easiest job in the world.
Into the oven with it for maybe 35 minutes.
You can occupy yourself by making the lemon glaze….remember you zested a lemon for the cake mix? Squeeze it now
and add it to some icing sugar in a pan and heat it through, making a lovely syrup
.. which needs to cool.
You can relax now until the cake is ready to come out… stick a skewer in to make sure it is cooked and then get it out to cool
Once everything has settled… stick holes in the cake and then pour over the syrup to make a lovely glaze
It is a really rather lovely cake, you know. Light and moist and beautifully tangy.. just the thing for a mid afternoon boost.
My boss, who doesn’t normally like cake, ate two slices and would perhaps have eaten more… but for the fact the whole thing had been polished off already. I suppose that is as good a rating as you will get for a cake.