A simple luke warm tangy lemon loaf, just what the kids needs after a swim in the icy cold Cape Point sea…..the ideal holiday bake, we’ve baked this loaf in a gas oven, with a door that did not want to close, mixed by hand as we did not have electricity….easy easy…
Freezing waters of Cape Point Nature Reserve….
For the Lemon Loaf you will need:
340g cake flour
pinch of salt
1t baking powder
180g very soft butter
500g castor sugar
1t vanilla
3 eggs
rind of 2 lemons (finely grated)
juice of 1 lemon
For the syrup:
100g sugar
peel and juice of 3 lemons
380ml water
For the lemon icing…
125ml icing sugar
lemon juice and water about 5 tablespoons…
Mixing by hand…
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees and grease a loaf tin. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt. In a different bowl beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, I mixed it by hand as we did not have electricity…. it came out perfect, just make sure your butter is very soft.
Add the eggs one at at time to the buttery mixture, add the vanilla and lemon rind. Stir in the milk, lemon juice and flour alternatively until just mixed.
Pauline giving me a helping hand …
Bake for about one hour until a skewer comes out clean and the loaf is nice and brown on top.
While baking make the syrup, simmer together the sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice and water for at least 15 minutes. I’ve peeled the lemons with my potato peeler, try not to get too much of the white bits under the skin…. Spoon the hot syrup and lemon peels over the WARM turned out cake as soon as it comes out of the oven, and let it cool a little bit.
The smell drawing the kids into the kitchen, note the “plan” we had to make to close the gas oven’s door…
At this stage I heard lots of screams of laughter outside the kitchen window, Ben and Emma, the two little ones…. I just had to go and look…
Ben and Emma having fun…
Quickly make the icing to drizzle over the cooled cake … stir together the icing sugar and lemon and water mixture by adding the liquid spoon by spoon to the icing sugar. One spoon at a time until you reach a thick runny consistency… drizzle the lemony icing sugar over the cake.
TEA TIME !!
It took us 5 minutes to polish this little tangy sweet number with some hot tea…
You can keep this lemon loaf for up to 3 days in an airtight container, IF you can keep your fingers out of it…
And tonight, we will be making a quick mushroom and thyme risotto….
Hanlie Green 