Sunday 5 April 2015

Lemon and Poppyseed Loaf




Happy Easter! If you're full of chocolate eggs and hankering for something else sweet but not egg shaped, then look no further! I love this recipe.

My mum is a really great cook, and her culinary accomplishments are made even better by their rarity. She doesn’t whip up a storm in the kitchen often, but when she does it is EPIC and I love it. Her shortbread is better than anything I’ve ever done, and I am openly jealous of this.

And this little knockout is a firm family favourite. Now, full disclosure, I am not using her exact recipe for the loaf, because I don’t know what it is (seeecret!), but I’m using her techniques and topping. This makes a very light yet moist cake that isn’t the most robust, so you need a decently thick slice.

Lemon and poppyseed makes the prettiest batter, and a damn tasty cake


This is so nice that I made it one evening and was planning to save a little aside for photographing the next day in daylight, but I took some to work and ATE THE REST BEFORE SUNRISE. It’s that good. So I had to make a second for daytime photographs. It's a tough life.

makes one large loaf

Ingredients
  • 330g plain flour
  • 20g poppy seeds
  • 1 tbsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp salt
  • Zest and juice of 1.5 lemons
  • 3 eggs
  • 150g caster sugar
  • ½ cup (125ml) vegetable oil
  • ½ cup buttermilk OR ¼ cup milk and ¼ cup greek yogurt
  • 1 tsp vanilla sugar


Topping
  • Juice of ½ a lemon
  • Enough icing sugar to make a pourable glaze, approx. 125g (I did not measure this, sorry!)


Method

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees and grease and line a loaf tin.

Mix the flour, seeds, baking powder, salt and lemon zest in a bowl and set aside.




In another, smaller bowl, mix together the rest of the ingredients: eggs, sugar, vegetable oil, buttermilk (or dairy of choice), vanilla sugar and lemon juice.

Gradually add the wet ingredients into the dry. Stir until all combined.



Pour into the prepared loaf tin and bake for approximately an hour. I covered the top in tinfoil approx. 45 minutes in to ensure that the top didn’t burn while the rest cooked.


Here's one I made earlier!


Remove from oven. While cooling, juice the remaining half a lemon and stir though the icing sugar until you get a thick, pourable glaze. At this point I make a few piercings through the loaf to allow some of the glaze to seep through (a technique from my mum!).

Bonus pie in the background!



Drizzle the glaze on top and allow the whole thing to cool. When cool, slice it up and get to eating!





2 comments:

  1. I despise cake in nearly all its forms, but lemon poppyseed cake is an exception. I love it. It is so amazing. I am literally salivating just looking at your pictures.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! This is probably one of my favourite cakes to make. Almost no effort for big rewards!

      Delete