Sensei's Garden Open Day - Lemon & Poppy Cake and Chocolate & Coffee Loaf:

So as most of you don't know, I'm actually a black belt in karate and my Sensei is having an open day this weekend and he asked me to bake a couple of cakes. I therefore apologise for the slight break away from the 'Tartes' theme but I thought I'd give you a little heads up and I'll post the link below if you want to check out his garden:

LEMON & POPPY SEED DRIZZLE CAKE:

90g unsalted butter, softened

300g caster sugar

Finely grated zest of 2½ lemons

Freshly squeezed juice of 2 lemons

10g poppy seeds + extra to sprinkle

160-170ml whole milk

240g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt + 1 pinch

3 egg whites

180-200g icing sugar

Oven: 170°C. *REMEMBER: FAN OVENS = -20°C.* Cream together the butter and 250g sugar then add the zest of 1½ lemons and the seeds using a hand mixer. Slowly add the milk and don't worry if you think that if you add any more milk than 160 it might get too liquid. Sometimes I find that it takes more than other days. Also do not worry if it appears slightly split.

Now, sieve in the flour in 3 additions and stir in the salt and the baking powder. Make sure to scrape unmixed ingredients from the sides. Beat really well until the mix is light and fluffy.

Next, whizz the whites with a pinch of salt until you get stiff peaks. Fold these in delicately using a metal spoon in several additions too. Pour into a prepared (greased and floured) 24 cm ring mould and smooth the top. Bake for 35 minutes or so.

SYRUP: Whilst the cake is baking, delay washing up and put the 1 lemon's juice, the remaining zest, the remaining sugar and 100ml water to boil on low heat. When it comes to the boil increase the heat and boil vigorously until you get a fairly runny syrup consistency. When the hot cake comes out of the oven, pour over the syrup. If it helps, stab it all over with a fine needle. Leave to cool slightly in the mould, then turn out. With the mould I used, I had to turn it upside-down, but that's no problem.

GLAZE: Mix the remaining (1 lemon) juice and icing sugar in a bowl until smooth. Add the juice to the sugar dropwise until you reach the perfect thickness. You can also add a few drops of food colouring if it reminds you of 'something else'. It should be thick but pourable. When the cake is cold, pour over the glaze and sprinkle in seeds.

CHOCOLATE & COFFEE TEA LOAF:

200g unsalted butter, softened

130g plain flour

190g soft light brown sugar

3 eggs

65g cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

20-30ml whole milk

1 good tbsp instant coffee powder/granules

1 tbsp coffee essence

Oven: 170°C. Grease and line a 2 lb loaf tin with baking parchment. What you want to do is cut a rectangular strip as wide as the base and as long as the base + the 2 sloping sides. Sprinkle the two uncovered sides with flour and tip out excess.

Next, cream the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs one by one and add a tbsp of the 130g flour with the last two eggs. Then sieve in the half the flour. 

Flavour the milk with both coffee 'products' and pour in half. Whizz it till it's nice and homogenous, then sieve in the rest of the flour, the cocoa powder and the baking powder. Finish off with the remaining coffee milk. Whizz on high speed for a few minutes to get it silky smooth and perfectly even then pour into tin and bake for 1 hour.

Leave to cool in the tin before grabbing the slightly overhanging paper and lifting out. Dust with icing sugar or cocoa.

The Garden Site