After my macaron failure the other day, I saved my baking reputation from tatters by baking a lemon and poppy seed cake to take into work.
I’ve been making lemon drizzle cakes for as long as I can remember, with the classic method of adding zest to the batter and then poking holes in the warm cake to allow a lemon juice and icing sugar mix to seep into it, adding extra lemon flavour and moisture.
This time around I wanted to try something new, and found an easy-to-follow recipe online for a loaf that included poppy seeds – something I’d never used in baking before. I tweaked the recipe a little bit to suit my tastes and what I had, and here’s how it went:
170g softened butter
170g caster sugar
190g plain flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
a pinch of salt
2 large eggs
60ml almond milk
30g poppy seeds – found in the local health food shop
the zest of 2 lemons
For the topping:
150g icing sugar
enough lemon juice to make a paste (a little bit less than half a lemon)
I’m still experimenting with a new loaf tin to get to know how it heats, so this took about an hour in the oven at 180.