Mother's Day: Lemon Loaf Cake

My mum loves lemon drizzle cake. Like, really loves it. I've never known anyone love it so much.

I think she has a point though, there is something refreshing about the tang of the lemon cutting through the softness of the sponge that is lighter lasting than my favourite coffee cake. So this Mother's Day I got up early and made her a lemon loaf cake for breakfast. Its a recipe by Raymond Blanc that I saw him make on his tv series 'Raymond's kitchen secrets' ages ago and have made once before a few years back.

The plan was to take a large slice of cake to her for breakfast in bed accompanied by the tiny puppy wearing a bow, but the universe conspired against me and my electronic scales ran out of battery before I realised, mid-bake, that we didn't have any bicarbonate of soda! Saved, not for the first time, by the co-op in the next village (the deli as we call it), I managed to produce the cake by half 10 by which time she was full dressed and hungry!

The cake itself is a bit of a labour of love, taking me around an hour and a half to make (not including emergency co-op trip and scale-directed anger) with its' double glazing and second short bake, but its worth it. 

The outside of the cake crisps beautifully like a crust, with added crunch from the double layer of glazing it gets when its out the oven - first comes a layer of melted lemon curd (the original recipe asks for apricot jam but I wanted to try out something different for taste) and the second is a delicious coating of a sugary lemon syrup dried in the cooling oven.

Lemon Loaf Cake (by Raymond Blanc)

5 large eggs

300g caster sugar

140ml double cream

3 lemons, zest only

1 1/2 tbsp rum

pinch of salt

80g unsalted butter, melted

240g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

For the glaze

3 tbsp apricot jam, warmed - I used lemon curd

For the lemon glaze

1 lemon, zest and juice

150g icing sugar

1) Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line a 2lb loaf tin measuring roughly 26cm x 9cm x 8/10cm.

2) Beat together the eggs, sugar, cream, lemon zest, rum, salt and melted butter.

3) Sift the flour and baking powder together in a separate bowl before beating into the wet mixture to make a smooth batter.

4) Pour into the tin and bake for about 50 minutes - the cake is cooked when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

5) When fully baked, remove from tin and allow to cool for 10 minutes before covering with the warmed jam glaze. Allow this to dry for about 5 minutes before the next step.

6) Mix the lemon juice and zest with the icing sugar and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved before brushing over the cake. After a few minutes, return the cake to the cooling oven for 5 minutes to dry the glaze to a glossy finish.

7) Slice and enjoy the soft lemony goodness.

8) Thank me later.

Experimental Zucchini Loaf

Having spent 4 months living in what I affectionately refer to as 'The Shack', its been a while since I've flexed my baking hands.  But today, whilst staying with a friend in Sydney, I took a long walk through the suburbs and city and took in some delicious smells from the multitude of cafes and bakeries I came across and it got me thinking.

To feed my growing obsession of baking with 'things my dad grows' I popped to the supermarket and picked up a zucchini, or in the real world, a courgette (being in Australia I couldn't actually use one from Dad's garden, but the thought is there).  I have no recipes for zucchini bread but a quick search online gave me heaps to read; the one I used is a combination of a few.

The poor little guy didn't really rise much so the loaf looks a little sad, and a lot ugly.  But once I'd sliced it open and popped some in my mouth, superficial factors were forgotten.  For an ugly little thing it tastes good!  The zucchini gives a delicate flavour and moisture to the bread, and the cinnamon and walnuts 

The texture is close, which could be improved if it had risen more, but the texture is right for a tea loaf.  I do wonder if doubling the quantity would have filled the tin better; the batter barely reached halfway and doesn't have much raising agent.  But the top hasn't risen to a dome which would have made for a much more aesthetically pleasing zucchini loaf.

If I was at home I'd have made a few tweaks to the ingredients; for a start I'd have measured the tin I was using.....  I don't like using white flour for tea loaves, I'd rather have used wholemeal flour and demerara sugar along with the soft brown sugar I used today.  This is one loaf I will try again though.

Zucchini Loaf (makes 1 loaf)

1/2 lb grated zucchini

1 1/2 cups plain flour

pinch bicarb. of soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

pinch nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

1 large egg

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 soft brown sugar

3/8 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1) Preheat oven to 180 degress

2) Combine flour, bicarb, baking soda and spices 

3) Mix egg, sugars, oil and vanilla extract

4) Add the zucchini and walnut to the dry mix

5) Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and fold gently with a tablespoon until the dry ingredients are just combined

6) Pour into the lined loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes.

7) When fully cooked allow the loaf to cool in the tin for 10 minutes and feel disappointed that its not beautiful

8) Leave it on the bench in your friend's kitchen so her boyfriend can eat it, but eat most of it yourself in the name of science and baking development.

Mixed nut, chocolate and jam loaf

I reached a point today where I went a bit weird.  By weird I mean, the words I was writing ceased to make sense, I got a bit twitchy (had been sitting down for hours) and I started to sing to the cat.  Shortly after this began, the cat left and I started to wonder about the state of my sanity.  Coming to the conclusion that I needed a break I took myself into the kitchen to make a mess under the guise of baking.

I have some mixed nuts in the cupboard, good sources of protein you see, and like the taste of baked nuts like in the flappy no j's I made the other day so wanted to use them in a tea loaf.  Then the weirdness came back and, as I was creaming the margarine and sugar, i decided adding jam would be fun.  I made a tea loaf from the Hummingbird Bakery book a while ago and all I really remember about it was that the jam tasted sweet and it fell apart in the tin.  So I added jam to mine, then added more when I'd mixed everything together because i panicked and it looked a bit dry.

The end result actually looks like a loaf and smells so good.  Unfortunately I had a fluff-brain moment when I set the timer and when it went off  I forgot how long I'd set it for so when I sliced the loaf it I discovered that it is slightly underbaked inside, MUST LEARN TO PAY MORE ATTENTION, expect if its my dissertation....

It does taste good though, and also like its good for you.  I love the taste of wholemeal flour so this is a winner for me, it can obviously be made with white flour but then you can't justify eating is as part of a 'healthy' diet, honestly.  The taste of the jam is very light, but is there, I did put some nutella on one slice because I couldn't resist it but the loaf itself does taste a bit nutella-esque because of the baked nuts and chocolate-combo.

Look at the nuts and seeds!! So healthy (looking).  Shame it's sort of collapsed a bit where I grabbed it so tight to slice it before it had cooled down properly

In my quest to avoid my dissertation I have adopted many tactics, varying from taking up knitting (no I haven't finished the jumper yet) to becoming obsessed with the gym.  As my dissertation is about social media I've justified spending a LOT of time on Twitter and came across the #teatimetreats challenge hosted by Kate at http://whatkatebaked.blogspot.com/ and Karen at http://lavenderandlovage.blogspot.com/ here http://lavenderandlovage.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-tea-time-treats-january-challenge.html

Nut, chocolate and jam tea loaf
75g soft light brown sugar
75g margarine
1 medium egg
2tbsp strawberry jam
225g wholemeal self-raising flour
75g mixed nuts, chopped up
probably 75g dark chocolate, chopped up roughly
I poured some seed mix from Tesco into mine because I was overexcited, just to see what it was like

- grease and line a 1lb loaf tin and preheat the oven to 180

1) Cream the butter, sugar and jam.
2) Eat some jam
3) Beat in the egg
4) Sitr in the flour and accessories
5) Eat some jam and chocolate
6) Pour into the tin and bake for longer than 30 minutes, check after 30 and guess, but do remember how long it's been in BEFORE you check it.
7) Eat it and feel virtuous
8) Wonder if you did really have time to go to the gym today and maybe you should be doing work instead of baking and blogging about it.
9) Decide it's fine, but in future, there's no need to write quite so much.....

Chocolate Banana Bread for breakfast

It was my birthday on Friday, I spent Saturday asleep so Sunday still counts as my birthday as far as I'm concerned so today I am doing my 'birthday baking' (I'm so fun).

Breakfast was chocolate banana bread - AMAZING.  I love chocolate (obviously) and banana and the only thing missing from this is peanut butter, so I covered some slices in it which only made it even more amazing than it already was (not a claim, a fact).

The recipe asks for walnuts but I decided it would be exciting (over enthusiastic from too much sugar too early in the day) to use pecan nuts instead, it just gives it a bit of a different taste and stops Geoff from casually stealing slices because he is 'allergic' to nuts.....  I also used wholemeal flour instead of plain; not sure why I just quite like the taste and this time my loaf didn't go weird, it was in fact exceptionally delicious - my last loaf went all crumbly and I blamed the flour, not me, its never my fault anyway.

large dog surveys the mess I have made and considers what to steal first...

large dog looks a bit guilty...

Chocolate Banana Bread  (from the Great Book of British Baking) 
250g self raising flour
a good pinch of salt
150g caster sugar
100g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 medium eggs, beaten
250g peeled mashed banana (2 large bananas)
75g dark chocolate + extra to eat whilst baking
100g walnut pieces

1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and grease and line a 900g loaf tin.
2) Put some good music on, James Blake is a good option for early on a Sunday morning, Bon Iver would also work well.
3) Mix the flour, salt and sugar together and add the butter and eggs.
4) Roughly mash the banana so its still a bit lumpy; add this to the mix with the chopped chocolate and nuts and mix it all together.
5) Press into the tin and bake for roughly 50 minutes until the loaf is golden brown.
6) Probably wait until its cooler before trying to eat it because, from experience, you will burn your tongue and this hurts.

Stress baking: Banana tea loaf

After having a lovely day I find myself feeling horribly stressed and tense; solution = baking.  I just needed to bake something, anything, and I love bananas and anything with carbs in so settled for a plain and simple banana tea loaf.

Ta-da.

Easy.  Its got an odd texture to it though from the wholemeal flour, a bit like a muffin I think?

Banana Tea Loaf
8oz self-raising flour (I used wholemeal becasue it makes me feel slightly less worse for eating it)
1/4 tsp bicarb of soda
pinch of salt
3oz butter
6oz caster sugar
2 medium eggs
2 1/2 bananas all mashed up
4oz chopped walnuts (mines half pecan because thats what I had left)

1) cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time.
2) fold in the dry ingredients
3) fold in the banana and nuts
4) bake for 1 hour (roughly) at 160 degrees
5) eat quickly with a mug of green tea and don't feel guilty because bananas and nuts are both good for you.