It’s a very chilly and snowy January afternoon, Mrs M invites over some of her girlfriends with their kiddies.

Italians don’t know how to deal with this cold weather, they dress their kids like onions, layers on layers on layers. A typical outfit for 2/3 years old italian toddlers living in London, in winter time, is long sleeves bodysuit, turtle neck shirt, thick wool sweather, long thight, sometime socks on top of it just to make sure their feet are not too cold, trouser, boots, down jacket, gloves, scarf around their necks as if they are ready to climb the Mount Everest, and of course big wool hat with ears cover. Nontheless they are always sick, compare to their Brit mates in T-shirt and flip-flops all year round…To make the inability to deal with this winter weather a bit less bitter the ‘Sciure’ (which is a typical word from North of Italy to describe an old style preppy lady -sciura/pl. sciure – who most of the time doesn’t work, has her hair always perfectly blown dry, wears classic jewerly bought by either her  family of provenance  or her husband… who usually is a lawyer, a dentist or a business accountant!) ..anyway, the Sciure had lemon cake with candied lemon julienne and  pukka tea.

Find our first recipe below. By the way –  Mrs M and her girlfriends are not Sciure. At least, not that kind of Sciure.

Ingredients

115 gr Butter

150 gr caster suger

100 g egg

1 lemon zest, grated

175 gr plain flour

2.5 gr baking powder

85 ml whole milk

Glaze

90 gr icing sugar

1 lemon juice

Decor

1 lemon julienne

150 gr sugar

100 ml water

Icing sugar for dusting, if wanted

Method

Turn your oven on at 180°.

Butter  your loaf tin and line it with parchment paper. Butter it again. You don’t want your dough to get in touch with the tin.

Soften your butter together with the sugar until it is creamy.

Break up your eggs and leave them in a meausuring jug.

Sieve flour and baking powder together.

Add your eggs into the butter and sugar mixture, by inclusions and whisk it until totally emulsified.

Add dry ingredients  to the mixture and mix it with your spatula.

At the end, add milk little by little until you have a dropping consistency. You may not need all the milk stated above.

Pour your dough in the tin and bake it into the preheated oven for around 20 minutes.

Check your cake with a clean knife to see if it’s cooked inside.

To have a nice and brown coat on the ouside and a soft cake inside, when the cake is brown on the top, cover it with aluminum foil.

Candied Lemon Julienne:

Peel your lemon, and cut it in even and thin slices.

Boil them in water twice then place them in a pot with water and sugar until boiling.

Glazing:

Mix icing sugar and lemon juice together. Warm it up to have the sugar dissolved in the juice.

Leave it to cool down.

Finishing:

Remove your cake from the oven, put it on a cooling rack and leave it to cool down.

Brush the glazing on top of it once, and once again. Apply the candied julienne to decor.

Categories: Breakfast and Tea time Recipes, Sweets, Sweets, ampm easy recipes

Tags: Morning Time Dessert,, Tea Time Dessert,