For my granny’s 80th birthday I made her a lemon pound cake of gigantic proportions. Decorated with pretty miniature daffodils and a scattering of purple-ish blue hyacinth flowers, it was both delicious and beautiful.
Here’s how I made it with the recipe for one cake below…
First I weighed out my ingredients, including three, yes three packs of butter – don’t worry, the recipe for one cake only requires one. Golden yellow organic butter…
And I zested some lemons…beautiful Italian ones from Unicorn with an incredible fragrance that filled the air as I zested them…
Next I creamed together the softened butter and sugar – I used fair trade golden caster sugar that hasn’t been so refined as the pure white stuff.
Pop it in your mixer…
Blitz it up – to begin with it starts to look like lumpy wet sand…
Keep going and it will start to change and look more like a crumbly dough mixture…
It’s not ready yet, so let it continue to mix and even when it looks like it does below, it’s still not quite there…
Persist until it looks like this – pale and creamy…
Next you add to your creamy butter sugar mixture the lemon zest and vanilla extract and briefly mix…
Now you add the eggs, one at a time, mixing after each egg until it’s just combined. These beautiful golden yolkers came from Abbey Leys Farm.
Finally, tip it out into a mixing bowl and add in the flour. I also added in some lemon juice to give it an extra lemony flavour…
Fold in the flour until it’s all mixed through and you have a lovely cake dough ready for baking…
Finally, spread the mixture into your cake tin – I used a large ring shaped tin and pop it into the oven to bake…
While the cake is baking, stand back to admire how many dirty bowls and spoons a gigantic cake creates…and wonder who’s going to wash them all up…
Hopefully when you take your cake out of the oven, allow it to cool then carefully turn it out onto a wire rack to cool it should look something like this…
The little sister and I then decorated the cake with a drizzling of lemon icing (lemon juice and icing sugar mixed together) and some pretty spring flowers. Granny was very pleased…
Below is the recipe – I tripled the ingredients to make the cake above.
Lemon Pound Cake
The Cake
250g caster sugar
250g butter, softened
250g self raising flour, sifted
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
Zest of 1 lemon
3 tsp lemon juice
Lemon drizzle icing
Lemon juice
Icing sugar
Preheat your oven to 180°C.
Lightly butter your cake tin and line with baking paper if you’re worried about it sticking – you shouldn’t need to line it if it’s a non-stick tin.
Beat the butter and sugar until pale and creamy.
Add the lemon zest and vanilla extract and mix in.
Next, add the eggs, one at a time – mixing until just combined before adding the next.
Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and sieve in half the flour. Carefully fold in.
Add the lemon juice and the remaining flour, and gently fold in until well combined.
Spread the cake mixture into your prepared cake tin and pop in the oven to bake for about 40-50 minutes. To test if your cake is cooked all the way through, insert a skewer into the centre of the cake and remove – if it is clean it is cooked, if there is cake mixture on it pop it back into the oven for a little longer. Bake for longer if you are doubling the recipe – just keep checking on it.
Once the cake has cooled a little, carefully turn it out onto a wire rack and let it cool fully.
To make the lemon drizzle icing, simple sieve a cup of icing sugar into a bowl, and add lemon juice little by little mixing it in until you have the consistency you want. Don’t make it too runny or it will just run straight off the cake!
Once the cake is cool, drizzle over the icing and decorate if you wish.
Eat the Earth 
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