Despite it still being fairly cool, there is definitely signs of spring in our Lancashire garden, the snowdrops are blooming well and there are even a few early daffodils poking through the soil. We have even heard the deep throaty calls of a few early frogs coming from our garden pond. So last weekend in celebration of spring and also for our last cake club I made a beautiful lemon and lime drizzle cake with zingy citrus flavours.
This gluten free cake has a beautiful crumb structure and is complemented with fresh sharp tasting icing drizzled on top.
To get the best results you need to firstly pay a visit to your local market or greengrocer (if you still have one - lucky you) to stock up on fresh juicy lemons and limes. Ideally unwaxed if you can get them, not to worry if you can't as a quick scrub under a running tap removes most of the wax used to help preserve the fruit.
To achieve the beautiful texture and crumb structure I used a mixture of very finely ground cornmeal (polenta), cornflour and white rice flour with a little xanthum gum.
What you need
- 175g White rice flour
- 105g Finely ground cornmeal (its golden yellow, I got mine from Holland and Barrett)
- 70g Cornflour
- 1 tsp xanthum gum
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 225g golden caster sugar
- 4 eggs - free range
- 200ml sunflower oil or vegetable oil
- 400ml skimmed milk
- 3 lemons - zested and juiced
- 4 limes - zested and juiced
- Oil spray for oiling tins
- 2 tbsp of granulated sugar
- About 100g of icing sugar
What you do
- Preheat the oven to 180c
- Whisk the eggs and caster sugar until light and fluffy and tripled in volume
- Sift in the flours, baking powder and xanthum gum, whisk this in along with the milk, oil and the zest of one of the lemons
- Pour the mixture into your prepared tin and place in the oven
- Bake for approx 60 minutes until firm and tests cooked with a skewer.
- Once ready, remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack in the tin.
- To make your drizzle, melt the granulated sugar and the juice of 2 lemons in a small pan until all dissolved.
- Prick the cake all over and gentle pour on the warm syrup whilst the cake remains in the tin
- Once fully cool remove the cake from the tin
Serve once the icing has set, the cake stores well in an airtight tin.
We are linking up to a new linky with this post, Belleau Kitchen's - Simply Eggcellent challenge where you link up recipes containing lovely free range eggs.
Also to Family Foodies - whose theme this month is Lets Get Baking . Hosted by Eat your Veg and Bangers and Mash.
Bake of the Week over at Casa Costello - a weekly baking linky
