Here is all about a cake I baked several weeks ago back at the end of February but forgot to blog all about it. I was due to go along to the Pudsey and West Leeds Clandestine Cake Club event which was in Horsforth. The theme for that month’s event was “Now That’s What I Call the 1980s”.
Being a 1980’s teenager I was inspired to bake and create a showstopper cake. I thought back to all the pop groups I loved, the food we ate and what was in fashion at the time. But all this was going to take up a lot of my time which i didn’t have much of during that week. So something simple had to be found quickly! Though a chocolate Rubik’s Cube cake would have been a fab idea if I’d had the time!
I phoned my mum and she thought of Pineapple Upside Down Cake which she remembered baking. Most of the things my mum and my Nana Mary (my Mum’s mum) baked were traditional things and not necessarily linked to the 1980s. Nana’s fruitcake was legendary as she used to leave it in the oven for too long so it dried out. Bless her. I don’t think she ever realised that we served her fruitcakes with custard to add some moisture!
Nana and I had lots of things in common in that we both loved cooking and baking as well as sewing and knitting. When I was 9, back in 1981 I remember Nana looking out a few recipe books for me to help me get into baking. One was a Tate and Lyle Golden Syrup book which I still have to this day. Along with some of her other recipe books which I inherited after she died, I treasure them.
So, after lots of recipe browsing I had to bake something from of one of my Nana’s 1980’s cookbooks and the Golden Syrup one was perfect. Not too many faffy, over fussy and complicated recipes and one I could adapt to bake with one of my Nordicware Bundt pans. I settled for a gorgeous Sticky Lemon Loaf recipe as I remember my Nana baking lemon cake and also making delicious lemon marmalade. Whether this was the recipe she used, I don’t know but I wanted to try it.
To bake the lemon loaf cake I was thankful that my scales can convert to imperial measurements as my Nana’s book showed all the quantities in pounds and ounces. This didn’t worry me as I don’t mind what measurements I use. I greased my new Nordicware lemon loaf bundt pan and dusted it with a sprinkling of flour.
In a bowl I sieved in 40z of self raising flour then into a medium saucepan I melted together 20z margarine, 2 oz caster sugar and 4oz of golden syrup. Once this had melted and then come off the heat to cool down a little I mixed together 1 large egg and 2 tbsp milk in a small jug. This was then combined and mixed together with the syrup mixture. To give the cake its lemon flavour I grated in the zest of a large lemon. Finally in went the flour and the mixture was beaten until smooth. The mixture was poured into the loaf pan and then baked in my oven for about 160oC. The recipe gave the oven temperature in Farenheit, my 0ven indicator only shows Celsius so I guessed!
The loaf cake stayed in the oven for about 25 minutes to half an hour. It was a Monday morning when I baked the cake and I needed it that night for the club. I was teaching that afternoon at a school over half an hour’s driving distance away and was panicking I would not have time to get myself sorted out and put on some sort of glaze on top of the cake to make it look spectacular. When it came out of the oven it looked a lot darker than I was expecting and I hoped it would look better with some sugar syrup on it to show off the lemon decorations of the loaf pan.
Almost straightaway I made up a sugar syrup using freshly squeezed lemon juice and caster sugar. This was then poured onto the cooling cake and brushed over the top of the lemon pattern carefully so that it would be even. It melted into the cake and was left to cool while I was out at work in the afternoon.
Against all the other cakes at Cake Club this month mine looked very plain and boring but I was glad it tasted ok. There were lots of delicious cakes to try this time: from a delicious Pac Man cake to a gorgeous Blueberry Ripple Bundt cake as well as a very scrummy Marathon (not Snickers!) cheesecake!
My friend Sharon used her gingerbread man bundt pan to bake Wham! in cake complete with Choose Life t-shirts! I was a Wham! fan back in the day so it was great to think we were eating George Michael’s arm or Andrew Ridgeley’s leg!
To read about the Clandestine Cake Club event you can find out more about it here:
To find out more about the fun we have at Clandestine Cake Clubs in the UK and all over the world:
http://clandestinecakeclub.co.uk/
Happy Baking!
Love Sam xx
SmartCookieSam 
One response to “Sticky Lemon Loaf Bundt Cake”
[…] Bundt cakes are those baked in pans manufactured by Nordicware and not necessarily a cake with a hole in the middle. This sticky lemon loaf cake baked from one of my Nana’s old recipe books went along to a Clandestine Cake Club event in February. […]
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