Orange & Lemon Loaf Cake

After my recent posts about cakes I thought it was time I shared a recipe with you.

I had a hankering for ginger cake yesterday and thought I'd have a go at making some, I was certain I had all the ingredients but when I checked, I was missing the ground ginger, a rather important ingredient for making ginger cake! I checked to see what else I had and decided to make an orange and lemon cake instead.

I only wanted a small cake so I thought I'd make it in a loaf tin. So here's my recipe for an orange and lemon loaf cake.

Ingredients

4oz butter or margarine

4oz caster sugar

40z self raising flour

2 medium eggs

1 medium orange

2tsp lemon juice

2-3oz icing sugar

Method

Turn on oven to 180°c/350°F/Gas Mark 4












1. Measure out the butter and sugar and mix together in a bowl, then add the flour.
2. Whisk the eggs and add to the bowl with the butter, sugar and flour.
3. Grate the orange and add the peel to the mixture, save a little for the icing.



4. Using the orange, squeeze some juice into the mixture (about a table spoon).
5. Mix all the ingredients together until smooth.
6. Grease and line a small loaf tin, I use butter and flour to line the tin.



7. Pour the mixture into the tin and place in the middle of a pre-heated oven.
8. Cook for 25-30mins or until cooked through and golden. You can test if it's cooked by stabbing it with a skewer or knife, if it comes out clean it's done, if it comes out gooey then it needs a bit more time.
9. Once it's cooked, take it out of the tin and leave to cool on a cooling rack.

Icing



1. Sieve 2oz of icing sugar into a bowl and add 2 tea spoons of lemon juice.
2. Mix together until smooth. You may need to add a tiny bit of water to make the mixture runnier. Aim for a thick consistency, if it's too runny it'll run off the cake, if it's too stiff it'll be hard to spread. If your icing is runny, add more icing sugar (a little at a time), if it's too stiff add a couple of drops of water or lemon juice.
3. Add the left over orange peel to the icing and mix together.



4. Spread the icing over the top of the sponge.

All that's left to do is put your feet up and enjoy a nice slice with a cup of tea, well, that and the cleaning up!