Lemon Drizzle Cake

This was another lemon drizzle I made

Good Morning Everyone!

So the past few days have been really busy. I was catering for a film crew and cast last week. It was a lot of fun! It wasn't as busy as the last one as it was only a small crew and cast and they only needed lunch. This was great experience for me, as it gave me the opportunity to widen my experience in this field and it also allowed me to understand and get first hand experience on what it was like to cater for different sizes of people and to their different individual needs.

Plus I got to see around different places which is always interesting, as I come from a very nosy family. I do love being nosy.

The catering was busy as it involved going through the following process;

1) Liaise with who was requiring the catering
2) Settle upon a few menu choices
3) Costing said choices and seeing whether that would suit
4) Working towards a budget
5) Finalising menu and then adapting it to fit certain specifications - a good skill to have

6) Putting together a list for the shopping
7) Buying ingredients and then refrigerating them and/or putting them into dry, protective storage
8) Planning what equipment is needed and when I need it during the cooking process

9) Maths, working out amounts, portions, cost per portion and bulk. This made it easier to see how much of each dish I would need to make for each person and the overall group of people. Maths can be very confusing. It is like saying your name over and over and over until it means nothing, literally. Try it!

Well I was checking and checking and checking my calculations with two different calculators and hard copy to ensure I was right with the portion sizes. Need to be thorough, but this gave me a migraine. The G&T came out that night, not while cooking of course though.

10) I made the food the day before delivery so it was as fresh as possible. I couldn't make them on the day as the delivery time wouldn't have given me enough time to make the dishes. So what I did was;

- Pre Clean, this is when I cleared away any ingredients into their storage and cleaned away any dishes. As I am a home caterer there occasionally will be dishes in the kitchen, but I always clean that all away before starting.

- Clean all the counter tops with sanitiser and a one use cloth. Then the cupboard doors. The oven. The sink. The fridge. The radiator. The table. And then I steam the floors. Put the dog's bowls out of the kitchen. So the only thing left is the clean kitchen, steamed and cleaned and me, in my cooking wear.

- Then I start cooking, so for example I made Chicken Tarragon and Pasta Bake. So that meant meat.

I would take it out of the fridge when I needed it and then began to prep it. I would get out my red cutting board and knife for meat cutting and cut it. Then cook it.

11) When the dishes were cooked they were cooled and then put into the fridge, labelled and covered.

12) Day of delivery, I would pack the car with the equipment that I needed and then when we were about to leave, I would put the dishes in the car. Then we drove them to their location and I served them.

13) Brought the dishes back.

14) Did the dishes and threw away any rubbish.

15) Changed into my cooking wear, cleaned the kitchen and started cooking the next dish.

So basically it was pre clean, cooking wear, clean the kitchen, cooking, cooling, storage, packing, delivery, reheat, serving, packing, cleaning. Repeat.

Anyway, yesterday I made a Lemon Drizzle cake for an order today. It was lovely baking again. I love baking and it is so enjoyable and relaxing. I listened to Hamilton whilst baking. This is something my sister turned me onto. It is so good!

















So the ingredients you'll need are;

- A loaf tin, greased and lined with baking paper.

CAKE:

- 165g Self Raising Flour
- 165g Butter, softened
- 165g Caster Sugar
- 3 Eggs
- 2 Lemons, zest and juice

SUGAR SYRUP:

- 2 tbsp water
- 50g Caster Sugar
- 1 Lemon, zest and juice

LEMON ICING:

- 50g Icing Sugar
- 1 Lemon, zest
- Enough water to make a thick, but not runny icing


METHOD:

- Grease and line the loaf tin with the baking paper and set aside for when needed.

- Pre- heat the oven to 170 C in a fan assisted oven

- Put the butter and sugar into a bowl and mix until light, fluffy and combined.

- Add in the eggs along with the lemon juice and zest and mix briefly.

- Add in the flour and mix on a high speed until it is light and combined thoroughly.

- Put this mix into the cake tin and pop into the oven.

- Bake it until it has risen, browned and is cooked all the way through. It will and should have a crack in the middle. This makes it look more appealing to me.

- To make the syrup, put the sugar, water and lemon into a pan and heat until it reached 130 C and is bubbling, all syrup like and lovely.

- Once it is baked, allow to sit in the tin for 10 minutes. When it is in the tin, spread on the sugar syrup, this will make the cake moist and give it a really lovely zing.

- Then take out and allow to cool on a cooling rack.

- Once the cake has cooled, pour over the icing.

- To make the icing, put the icing sugar into a bowl and dribble in enough water to make a thick, but not stiff icing. You want it thick enough to set, but not so thick as it won't spread.

- Grate the lemon zest over this and it is done!

Simple and delicious! All lemony and delicious!

I really enjoyed making this as it was great fun and relaxing. Plus it is hard to beat a lemon drizzle. The icing is lovely as it kind of mellows out the lemon and brings the whole thing together.

I making some iced fingers today, or at least am planning on. Will update you on how that goes.

Thanks and hope you enjoyed this!?

Ciara