About a month ago we went to The Longshaw Estate run by the National Trust. It has as most National Trust sites do a tea shop. While these tea shops have expanded their ranges in the last few years into sandwiches , juices and salads.Traditionally what they always did was very good cakes served in hip-busting portions.
I was really looking forward to a cake at the end of a lovely long walk . So I could almost feel my bottom lip wobble as I watched the last piece of lemon and poppy seed cake go to the person in front of me. Never a person to let go of things I have been thinking about lemon poppy seed cake ever since , it just took me a while to find poppy seeds.
I went through a couple of recipes and ended up putting this together from a few around . I was a bit worried as it seemed a very wet mix but it produced a moist sticky topped cake with the bite of the poppy seeds.
Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake
Makes 9 large squares
250g butter
250g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 lemon – zest and juice
4 large eggs
5tbsp poppy seeds
150ml milk
250g self-raising flour
- Soak the poppy seeds in the milk for at least 1 hour.
- Heat the oven to 150degC.
- Line a 25cm square baking tin with greaseproof paper.
- Cream together the butter, sugar , vanilla essence , lemon zest and juice.
- Beat in the eggs, poppy seeds & milk.
- Finally fold in flour.
- Pour the mixture in a lined tin and bake for 45 minutes.
- Leave it to cool and cut into squares
Oh, that looks so good
I agree! It looks delicious.