Lemon Syrup Cake

For this 'lemony' month, I have shortlisted quite a bit of lemon recipes and realised that most of them are desserts and not really savoury meals. I hope to have a well balanced combination of both. We shall see :)

Despite me promising Mr G to cook and bake healthily, I'm still going ahead to bake this simple and tasty cake because I simply cannot resist anything with lemons. I half suspect I might have quite a few slices of this cake.

This recipe is from Nigella Lawson's "How to be a Domestic Goddess". When I first received this book as a gift, I was pretty much delighted. I mean, who wouldn't? It's Nigella's :) This was one of the first few recipes in that book that caught my eye. 

Enough of all the talk. Let's get to serious lemon business.

Ingredients for the cake:

125g unsalted butter

175g caster sugar

2 large eggs

zest of 1 lemon

175g self rising flour (see Note)

pinch of salt

4 tbsp milk

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.
2. Butter and line your loaf tin well.
3. Cream butter and sugar till pale and fluffy.
4. Add eggs, one at a time and allow the egg to blend well before adding the next egg.
5. Gently fold in the flour and salt, mix thoroughly.
6. Add the milk.
7. Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean.

Ingredients for the syrup:

juice of 1 1/2 lemon

100g icing sugar

Method:

1. Put the lemon juice and icing sugar into a small saucepan and heat gently until the sugar dissolves.
2. As soon as the cake is out of the oven, puncture the whole cake all over with skewer and pour the syrup all over. 
3. Leave the cake to cool completely before removing from tin.

Note: To make your own self-raising flour, whisk 125g plain flour with 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt. For this recipe I made double batch of this self-raising flour recipe and kept the remaining. 

Can you even see the holes punctured into the cake? I thought it was so distinct that the cake looks pretty 'injured' @@ Haha but all for a good cause!! To soak up the lemon syrup! :)

My verdict on this cake is, I simply love how the tightly crumbed the loaf cake is. It's not dense but yet nice and moist. However, I think if I ever make this, I will definitely reduce the amount of syrup poured over the cake. It's a tad sweet for me. Well, of course, this is a perfect birthday gift to us all! Yes, according to the Lunar calendar it's everyone's birthday today. So what better cake than a simple and easy cake to celebrate our birthday together :)

I'm linking this post to the event, Little Thumbs Up organized by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Doreen of my little favourite DIY which is hosted by me. 

The Little Thumbs Up event begins every first Tuesday of the month until the last day of the month so you are just on time. Do join us! 

To join, simply cook or bake any recipe with the theme of LEMON for February 2014 and link up with us at this post anytime until 28 February 2014.

Do not forget to display your Thumbs Up picture or display the badge above. 

Your post should be:

1. a current post i.e. only for February 2014
2. Please mention 'Little Thumbs Up' in your label and post and link back to Bake for Happy Kids, my little favourite DIY or/and Grace of Life can be Simple. For more details, you may refer to this.

I'm also submitting this post to Calendar Cakes hosted by Dolly Bakes and Laura Loves Cakes. Much as this cake wouldn't seem like a valentine's day cake with its simplicity, to me, it's very much baked with love :)