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Recipes from my Lincolnshire kitchen

butter and lemon very naked cake

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… i know I shouldn’t use it as an excuse but i’m going to anyway… the oven in my london flat is a pile of crap (sorry if you’re reading this dear landlord but it’s true)… i’ve baked three cakes and they’ve all come out un-cooked in the middle and burnt at the edges. I’ve tried lowering the temperature and cooking for longer but then I get a dry cake… i’ve tried turning the heat up, adjusting the shelf height, wrapping the cake in parchment and now quite frankly I give up… this latest effort should be the easiest, fail-safe cake to bake but it cracked open, sank in the middle and simply didn’t fully cook… it wasn’t all to no avail as the cooked bits were gloriously light and buttery and in need of no adornment whatsoever – just how they should be in fact – but the middle was a big old disapointment… oh well, we can’t all be perfect all the time, however hard we try…

butter and lemon cake
in my on-going bid to stay ahead of the curve I found myself baking yet another naked cake this week… my dear friends at Rodda’s sent me a bumper pack of their stunning cornish butter to play with and I thought i’d be as true to its buttery goodness as possible and make this very simple butter cake that has just a fine grating of lemon peel and the faintest squeeze of lemon juice to enhance the taste… painfully simple recipe and method but always worth baking…

250g rodda’s cornish butter  – room temperature
4 large free-range eggs
250g golden caster sugar
250g flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
the zest and a squeeze of one lemon

grease and line one 20cm loose bottomed baking tin

in a large bowl cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, this could take up to 10 mins if doing it by hand

beat the eggs together then add them a little at the time to the butter and sugar mix alternating with the flour and beating after each addition

add the grated lemon zest and the merest squeeze of lemon juice and beat in

pour into the baking tin and bake on 170C for 35-40 mins until it is hopefully golden and risen and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean

eat and of course, enjoy!

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Comments

  6. london bakes says

    I'm still a little skeptical of my new oven…they can be such tricky beasts can't they? I think this cake sounds delicious though – sometimes the most simple recipes are the best.

  7. Couscous & Consciousness says

    Ok, I've got to admit, it was the word “naked” that hooked me … what can I say, I've got a dirty mind?!

    And then I got all sentimental, because this reminds me so much of the cakes of my childhood. My grandfather's favourite cake was Madeira cake, and we often had simple buttery, lemony cakes like this. In fact my favourite was a cake very similar to this with cherries in it which my mother used to make every year for my birthday.

    Thanks for a wee trip down memory lane 🙂

  8. Phil in the Kitchen says

    I feel your pain. I've been at the mercy of lousy ovens far too often in the past. It's a useful reminder not to take my current oven for granted. That's still a fine cake, though, whatever the difficulties.

  9. Baking Addict says

    Oh no! That happened with my old oven and it was such a pain – it was good to know that it wasnt just me, it was the oven! This cake sounds wonderful and the slice looks perfect

  12. Magnolia Verandah says

    The local primary school where one of my grandsons attend is right into “nude food” (food prepared at home and no packaging allowed at school) this cake would find no complaints with texture or uncookedness (is that a word) with this great butter lemon cake. Come to think of it nor would I.

  13. Choclette says

    Buttery anything sounds good, but your butter lemon cake looks really good. I love the crack down the middle, looks like a golden volcano just ready to burst. Very annoying about the oven. I've got one of those too.