Lemonade Cake!

This weekend was so beautiful and sunny I decided a summery pud/cake was in order! I've got two 'seasonal food' cook books at home and was looking through them for inspiration when I came across this recipe. I had to re-read it THREE times. I mean seriously the base is just made of self-raing flour, cream and LEMONADE!?!?!?

Thought it was crazy and therefore had to be tried! Since reading the web a bit further, it's quite a common recipe... for scones. It makes sense as the recipe said the base should be scone-like.

 

It was a delicious pud and I would make it again, except I need to make the base lighter in texture. It was rather dense & heavy. After reading up afterwards, they do say that the lemonade-scone recipe is quite a doughy one. Also "not to mix it too much" I may have mixed a bit too much - I think I got a bit over excited about stiring lemonade into a cake mixture. Reminded me of making 'mud pies' as a kid...ha  hmmm... any way I digress. But yeah I deffinitly need to give it a second chance and perhaps cook at a higher temp than was suggested in the recipe I followed.

Thinking about it I think I was very lucky with getting the fruit. What with British raspberries not been in season yet and with this CRAZY ash cloud stopping any imports... I was very lucky to find them on offer in the local shop :D

 

RECIPE: (original recipe from "Kitchen Seasons" - Ross Dobson)

375g Self-raising flour

500ml whipping cream

250ml lemonade

100g raspberry jam

1 tablespoon icing sugar

2 peaches, stoned and sliced

1 punnet fresh raspberries

a 20cm fluted, loose bottomed tart tin, lightly greased (I only had a 25cm dia one, seemed to work ok)

Preheat the oven to 180oc (when I bake this again I think I'd put it up too 200oc). Sieve the flour in a large bowl, measure half the cream and all of the lemonade in a jug together & pour into the bowl with the flour. Fold in gently, be careful not too over mix, as this will make the base really tough and dense.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin & gently level out. Pop in the pre-heated oven for 30-35minutes, until golden on top (do not open the oven till you need to at the end). Remove the cake from the oven and place on a wire rack for 10mins. Then remove from the tin to completely cool.

Once it is 'completely cool' slice 0.5cm off the top to level it off. Then spread the jam across the top.

Whip the remaining cream with the tablespoon of icing sugar until it forms soft peaks. Spoon the cream on top of the cake, arrange the fruit on top and serve!

 

All the sunshine this weekend has made very excited about the summer & having 'Cream Teas!'. So I'm gonna be on the search for an amazing scone recipe, so if you know one do let me know. Think I might have to do a load of taste testing to work out which is the best..... Gonna need some test eaters hmmm... perhaps everyone at work?