When Life Gives You Lemons

A warm-hearted lady sent me a recipe yesterday, for a "Luscious Belgian Lemon Teacake".  The recipe was so simple and didn't involve the use of a mixer that immediately I was intrigued at how it would turn out.

The method to this cake involves cooking a custard filling for the centre of the cake, which I suppose is what gives it its 'lusciousness'. ;)


Ingredients for Cake
1 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup castor sugar
60g butter
1 egg, lightly beaten

Method

1. Line a 17-cm round cake tin. (I used my 8-in round cake tin, which is about 20-cm).
2. Sift the flour and add the sugar.  Rub in the butter until breadcrumb-like, then add the egg.  You'll get a sticky dough.
3. Divide the dough into 3 parts, and put 2 parts into the bottom of the tin, and spread it out with your fingers.

Ingredients for Lemon Custard
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon (about 1/4 cup)
1/3 cup of sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
60g butter

Method

1. Put all your ingredients except the lemon zest into a saucepan and melt on low heat, stirring constantly.
2. Once the sugar has melted, slowly bring the mix to boil and it will thicken.  Once that happens, turn off the heat.

Back to Cake Method

1. Sprinkle half of the lemon zest over the cake batter in the tin.
2. Pour the lemon custard over the cake batter.
3. Cut up the remaining cake batter into teaspoon sizes and drop them onto the custard to cover evenly.
4. 
   
   
   
5. Sprinkle the rest of the lemon zest over the cake and pop it into the oven set at 180 deg C for 30 mins. (I lowered the heat after 15 minutes to 175 dec C because the top of the cake looked very brown. :))
6. Cool in the tin.
7. 
8. Remove from tin, sprinkle icing sugar on top, and then serve with tea.  Yums!

The fragrance of this cake while baking is wow!  The whole house is filled with its scent. :)
The cake is crumbly, sticky and parts of it crunchy... what a mouthful of texture and goodness!

So friends,
When life gives you lemons, don't despair!
Make this luscious lemon cake to share -
Your woes are halved, your blessings doubled,
When friends share your lemons and your trouble.