CITRUS MAKES ME HAPPY…TANGY FRESH LIME CAKE

Deeba @ PAB

16 years ago

Anytime the perfume of orange and lemon groves wafts in the window; the human body has to feel suffused with a languorous well-being.”

Frances Mayes, Bella Tuscany

CITRUS is Tartelettes’ chosen flavour for this months’ edition of Sugar High Fridays , a monthly event created by Jennifer of The Domestic Goddess.

One of my favourite flavours, I find myself using ‘citrus‘ , mostly lime, every single day, in one way or another. No day is complete with a squirt of lemon, or a splash of orange. It’s quite amazing how international a flavour citrus is. We’re talking marinades, salad dressings, desserts, chutneys, cookies, cakes, sauces, pickles, preserves…the list seems endless. For me, it’s fascinating to find CITRUS in so many avatars in blog land…lemon preserves in Moroccan stew@ Mike’s Table, pretty Lemon Madeleines @ Tartlettes, Marinada Davita @ Familia bencomo, Lime Green Chili Pickle @ Konkan World, Orange & Asparagus Salad @ No Special Effects, Candy Ravioli in Orange sauce @ Dhanggit’s Kitchen are among a few I can remember off the top of my head.

These are snapshots of some favourites from my blog & some yet to be posted…

And now onto my entry for the immensely talented Tartlettes SHF event. Made this ‘Tangy Fresh Lime Cake’ from a book I recently bought at a book fair. It’s the Readers Digest book on ‘CAKES 1,001 Classic Recipes from Around the World‘; has a collection of recipes from far & wide, with tonnes of variety thrown in. This cake is a simple, everyday tea cake; wasn’t as tangy as the book said even though I had increased the lime juice. So I decided to get it HIGH ON SUGAR for Tartlettes‘ & dressed it up with a saturated sugar-lime syrup.

Crystallized flowers from my winter garden added to the high…all ready to go off for SHF!!

The cake before it got dressed up… with a dusting of sugar

CRUMBS!! Who’s been eating my cake? The kids had slices as it got out of the oven…nice, moist & light!

All dressed up & somewhere to go…

The recipe as adapted from Readers Digest ‘Cakes’, pg 22

Ingredients:

Butter – 1/2 cup

Sugar – 1/2 cup

Eggs – 3 / large

Vanilla Extract -1 tsp

Lemon Extract – 1 tsp

Flour – 1 1/3 cups

Baking powder – 1 1/2 tsps

Salt – 1/4 tsp

Milk – 1 tbsp

Lime Juice – of 2 limes

Zest of 2 limes

Syrup

Castor sugar – 1/2 cup

Juice of 2-3 limes to make a nice thick syrup

A few drops of yellow food colouring / optional

Crystallized fresh flowers ( see post here)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180degrees C. Grease & flour an 8″ ring cake tin. I lined the bottom as well.
Sift the flour + baking powder + salt. Keep aside.
Cream the butter & sugar till light & fluffy.
Add the eggs one by one, beating well after each addition, followed by the vanilla & lime extract.
On slow speed, gradually beat in the flour mix + milk + lime juice + lime zest.
Spoon the batter into the prepared tin & bake for 25-30 minutes / till done.
Meanwhile, mix the Castor sugar + lime juice + food colour to get a thick syrup.
Once the cake is done, cool in pan for 10 minutes, & gently turn it out onto rack.
Poke the hot cake with a wooden skewer, & pour the syrup uniformly over it. Immediately place the flowers or garnishing & allow to cool completely on the rack.

The pictures are not too clear because I was experimenting with settings on the camera & messed up. By the time I downloaded the pictures & realised, the cake was half gone…such is life!!

This morning I found these pretty seeds on the ‘currypatta‘ tree; the leaves of which are very popular in Indian cuisine. I enjoy looking for ways to use fresh flowers etc from the garden as a centre piece for the table. I brought in a bunch for the table; thought they looked remarkably like speckled eggs!

The view from above…

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