LEMON CAKE…Baked as a gift!!

LEMON CAKE sans sour cream…

Made my ‘twisted’ & ‘tangy’ lemon cake again…keeping in mind Zlamushka’s ‘Spoonful of Christmas’. This was a gift for a friend, and looked very pretty when dressed up. Convenient to gift too, since it’s already in a ‘case’! This time I used something very interesting…‘Lemon Sugar’ that my friend got from Ukraine. They have these satchets of lemon sugar that are very citrusy and add a lovely tang and kick to the cake. This recipe made 2 nice loaves…so we had one too! Yippee!!

I plan to make lemon shortbread cookies with the sugar too…in the near future hopefully!

Ingredients:

Butter – ½ cup/100gms
Eggs – 3
Sugar – 1 ¼ cups
Flour – 1 ½ cups
Baking powder – 1 tsp
Baking Soda – ¼ tsp
Salt – ¼ tsp
Yogurt – 4 tbsp / thick
Cream – 2 tbsp / 25 % fat
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Rind of 2 lemons
Lemon Sugar -1 tsp (optional)
Lemon Extract – 1 tsp
Orange Essence – 1 tsp
Vanilla Essence – 1 tsp

‘Lemon Sugar’ from the land of the sweet babooshkas…

Lemon Syrup:

Water – ¼ cup
Powdered Sugar – ½ cup
Lemon Sugar – 1 tsp (or juice of 2 lemons)
Orange Extract – ½ tsp (optional)

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Grease and dust 2 loaf foil (7-8 inches) cases well.
• Sift the dry ingredients together. Keep aside.
• Mix the yogurt + cream+ juice of 1/2 lemon in a small bowl. Keep aside.
• Beat the butter + sugar well until light and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs 1 by 1, scraping the sides down after each addition.
• Beat in the lemon rind + lemon extract + orange essence + vanilla essence + lemon sugar.
• On low speed, beat in the dry ingredients alternatively with yogurt and cream mix…in 3 goes.
• If you like, you can mix a deeper yellow colour in 1/3 of the batter to get a marble effect.
• Divide the batter into the foil cases, alternating with the deeper coloured batter, if using, and level out.
• Bake for approximately 60 mins, or till the tester comes out clean.
• Leave on racks in foil cases.
• Meanwhile, while the cake is baking, heat the water + sugar + extract+ lemon sugar and make syrup.
• Should taste nice and tangy…like a concentrate.
• Poke the cakes gently with a skewer. Pour the warm syrup over the hot cake.
• Drizzle some thicker lemon icing over the top & decorate with sprinkles etc. ( I used basil leaves too dredged in icing sugar…since I didn’t have mint leaves)
• Allow to cool completely, and then wrap in cellophane paper and ribbons to make a pretty gift.