Weekend cooking: Lemon drizzle cake

I enjoy cooking very much when everyone else asleep is.  Early in the morning, when not even the birds have started their daily chirping, when all is quiet, there is nothing better for me than to whip up a nice, easy ... cake!

Baking usually entails the use of an electric mixer, but at 4 o'clock in the morning, that would be disastrous.  I used a wooden spoon to mix ingredients, and a hand whisker to beat, and it turned out that not only did I enjoy it (silence continued), but also that the end result just as fluffy was as with electricity...

I had been wanting to make a cake for quite some time now, what with the weather being more autumnal than summery... I came across Mary McCartney's Food, a book celebrating vegetarian home cooking through an insert in a magazine.  Mary is the daughter of Paul but also of Linda McCartney, one of the pioneers in vegetarian cooking.  And while I'm not usually impressed by famous people who have the urge to show they can cook as well, I really did like the recipes, in my quest for more meat-free variety in the meals I prepare.

This lemon drizzle cake was turned into muffins when I realised that the loaf tin way high up was and that I, not fully awake at that time, would be in great risk if I stepped on a ladder... Cake or muffins, though, they filled the house with a wonderful fragrance while they baked (and, later on, the tummies with a delectable lemony-syrupy warmth...)

Lemon drizzle cake (or muffins!)

(adapted from Food by Mary McCartney)

125g softened butter

125g light brown sugar 

180g gluten-free flour

3 eggs (2 if you are using regular flour)

grated zest and juice from 3 lemons

2 teaspoons baking powder

4 tablespoons milk

60g icing sugar

you are MINE...

Preheat oven at 180C.  Cream butter and sugar.  Beat eggs gradually in, and mix until fluffy.  Stir lemon zest, flour, baking powder and mix again.  Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, mix and then beat in the milk.  

You can line a 23cm loaf tin and pour the batter in or, if making muffins, you can put little paper cups or lightly oil spray the muffin tins and pour the batter just as easily. Bake for about 35-45min, or until golden brown.  Leave to cool for 5 minutes.  In the meatime, stir icing sugar with remaining lemon juice.  Pierce each little muffin with a thin skewer and spoon the syrup over the muffins...

This post is my entry into Weekend Cooking, a weekly event hosted by Beth Fish Reads.