Having spent yesterday plumbing in water butts and glazing the small greenhouse, this meant today was the day for cooking rather than gardening. And, inspired by the dancing yellow flutterbys and the sun, it had to be a lemon cake.
We had some limited edition Yeo Valley Lemon and Poppy Seed Yoghurt in the fridge so I decided to use that in the cake to help it stay really moist - the best lemon cakes are always a bit squidgy. But I couldn't find a lemon cake recipe anywhere, only one with ricotta cheese in it, so decided to make it up. I'd put in an extra egg next time to hold it together better, but other than that I think the recipe works perfectly.
I mixed 8oz light brown sugar with 4oz margarine and then added 6oz of the lemon and poppy seed yoghurt. I then added the zest of 2 lemons and the juice of 1 1/2 of those lemons (the juice of the other half lemon is used later in the recipe). At this stage it looks a bit like the mixture had curdled - I think this is the effect of the lemon - best just to ignore it and carry on. I then mixed in 8oz flour and a teaspoon of baking powder, half a teaspoon of salt, and finally two eggs. After mixing this all up thoroughly I cooked it for about half an hour at gas 5.
Leave the cake halves to cool. I then mixed up some of the yoghurt with icing sugar until it was the consistency of double cream and used that to sandwich the cake together. Mix the juice from the remaining half of the lemon with some icing sugar, until its the consistency of double cream, then pour that all over the cake
I slightly undercooked the cake - still getting to grips with the new oven - and this meant it was really oozey and gooey - lovely!
In case you want to attract lemon yellow butterflies into your garden, the butterflies sip nectar from teasel, knapweed and buddleia. You can also help out all bees and butterflies by planting lots of wildflowers in your garden - a really easy way to do this is with seedballs which you liberally scatter about whever you want wildflowers.
