building

A Oh-so Light Lemon Cake

Forestwood

With the onset of winter in the south and spring in the north, adding lemons in some form to your diet is a good practice.

From the blog archives of Tidious Ted, an old blogger friend:

An amazing lemon cake made from an old recipe.

teapot and a slice of lemon cake

The cake is soft and light, somewhere between a sponge and madeira. Yet it has the fresh and delicious taste of lemon.

Lemon Cake Recipe

Ingredients

  • 150 g [5,3 oz] butter
  • 3 Eggs
  • 300 g [10,5 oz] sugar
  • Grated peel of one lemon
  • 2 dl [0,4 pint] milk
  • 300 g [10,5 oz] sifted flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder

Lemon Icing:

  • Icing Sugar
  • Lemon Juice

Method:

[1] Stir butter and sugar until airy and white.

[2] Add one egg at a time, then lemon peel and flour alternately with milk.

[3] Pour the batter into two small oblong cake moulds or one deep round cake* mould with a diameter of 24 cm / 9,5 in. Beware this makes a large cake!

[4] Bake at 150° C / 300° F for about  45 minutes.

[5] Spread the icing over a cooled cake before serving.

NB* I used a cupcake tray and a large Kugelhopf/Bundt Cake Mould.

The Original recipe from Tidious Ted’s Recipereminiscing blog an old blog now lost to the wordpress archives.

building

Traditional Icelandic Cake

Forestwood

20161011_101255

As I get a little older, watching the waistline becomes mandatory. Weekends are more the time to indulge in baking and eating sweet treats. Rabbit rations are for the working week.

I was reminded of the wonderful ‘Hjonabandsaela’ or Blessing of the Marriage cake at a recent lunch!  It is not only light and delicious, it is traditional comfort food at its best, and – it originates from Iceland!

And I am heading to a Thai wedding shortly. It’s an informal second wedding so a Bring a Plate concept is included. So to add some ‘Scandi flair,’ for which I am renowned. I will make an Icelandic cake.

Icelandic Wedding Traditions

Fridays are the traditional wedding day in Iceland.

The pagan Icelanders believed the day was dedicated to Frigga, who just happened to be the goddess of marriage! Engagements sometimes last for 3 -4 years, so after waiting that long,  it is little wonder that cake features prominently in the celebrations!

At the wedding feast itself, a ‘Kransekake’ or traditional Scandinavian wedding cake, is eaten. This the wonderfully Scandinavian stack of crispy, concentric almond-based pastry rings, decorated with icing and flags, which looks and tastes incredible.

Another Icelandic tradition is for a groom to send presents to bride’s family, on the morning after the wedding.  Whilst the ancient tradition is by and large, forgotten in modern times, it is still customary for a bride and groom to exchange personal “bed gifts and cake.” The traditional religious ritual, the ‘Blessing of the Marriage’ is undertaken by the priest, after the wedding couple leave the wedding feast, when the bride and groom are finally alone! This is the cake for such an occasion!!!

This weekend’s sweet treat!

20161011_101255

Recipe – Hjonabandsæla -Blessing of the Marriage

20161011_101320.jpg

Ingredients:

1 cup rolled oats

1  cup plain flour

1 cup dark brown sugar

150 gram butter

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda/baking powder

1/2 teaspoon cardamon (optional)

Rhubarb jam or other not very sweet jam such as cranberry.

Mix  thoroughly softened  (not melted) butter with the sugar. Add flour, bicarbonate of soda and oats

Press 3/4 of dough into greased tin. Spread jam on top, sprinkle the rest of the dough on top.

Bake in medium hot oven approx  30 -40 minutes.

To Make your own Jam

Bring to boil:

2 cups chopped rhubarb

juice of 1 orange

1/2 cup strawberry or cranberry (lingonberry) jam

2 tablespoon sugar

Cook 10  minutes and allow to cool. You can add more sugar if you think it is too tart.

NB Tips:

  • If mixing by hand, use quick cook rolled oats, instead of whole oats.
  • Instead of rhubarb jam, you can try cranberry, blackberry or plum jam.
lemon yoghurt cupcakes
building

Lots of Lemon Cake

Forestwood

Although I am more than partial to a good Hot Cross Bun, we don’t tend to have such a traditional Easter celebrations anymore with chocolate eggs, as there are no small children around, so this Easter Sunday I was hunting for a good Lemon cake recipe to bake.

I know that I have made many during my ‘blogging career,’ but somehow this post that was drafted in 2020, escaped publication. So here it is Australia’s best Lemon Yoghurt Cake.

Happy Easter!

Lemon Tree

Do you remember the lemon tree, called,’Lots of Lemons,’ I planted at the Home by the Sea, a few months back? Due to the poor quality of our soil, we planted it in a pot in the backyard. I remember Chris was curious as to how it would grow.

It is budding a small lemon, just one, but it is its first year living at our home.

UPDATE 2023: the lemon tree is now in a garden bed and is over two metres tall.

In honour of the first lemon, and a large tub of yoghurt to use up before its use by date, I made a Lemon Yoghurt Cake. And it was light, tangy and delicious.

Australia’s Best Lemon Yoghurt Cake

The following recipe makes one large ring cake, two sandwich pan cakes or around 2 dozen cupcakes.

Adapted from bestrecipes.com.au

Lemon Yoghurt Cake Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 and 3/4 cups sugar – I only used 1.5 cups
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 4 tsp lemon juice
  • Zest of 2 lemons
  • 3/4 cup oil
  • 1 cup natural yoghurt
  • 2 cups self-raising flour (If you don’t have Self-raising flour in your country you can make it by adding 2 teaspoons of baking powder to each cup of Plain flour)

Method

  1. In a bowl, mix rind, oil, eggs and sugar with a fork.
  2. Add remaining ingredients and combine well.
  3. Pour into your selected cake tin – I use a ring tin and bake at 180C for 30- 40 minutes.
  4. Leave to cool for 10 minutes then turn out
  5. Prick holes in the top of the cake and dribble lemon juice over the top. This gives it a tangy flavour.
  6. Dust with icing sugar and serve.