Iced Lemon Traybake

Recipe Two Hundred & Seventeen:  Page 174.

I adore anything lemony and I'm also a huge fan of Mary's easy peasy traybakes. I had high hopes for this cake and was looking forward to scoffing numerous slices!

Isaac had kindly set an assault course for me in the kitchen. Sadly I'm not very agile and so was left with a Lego imprint on the sole of my foot. I hobbled over to the cupboard to gather up the dry ingredients then laid them out on the worktop. My attempt at being organised! I'd even remembered to take the butter from the fridge and leave it to soften on the window sill. As it was a warm day, the butter was almost dripping from the packet. I had to use a spoon to scoop it into the awaiting mixing bowl! Next I added in a large quantity of caster sugar and tried to forget about how many calories a slice of this cake must contain! I opened up the brand new packet of self-raising flour and attempted to tip the contents in a little at a time. Of course a great big pile fell into the bowl, giving me almost twice the amount of flour than was actually needed. Out came a spoon and I painstakingly picked out the surplus! A little baking powder followed by four eggs also made their way into the bowl. One egg nearly didn't make it as it escaped my clasp, fell onto the worktop and rolled off the edge. I've never really taken the opportunity to test my reflexes, but on this occasion they were like greased lightning and my egg was saved!! Next I headed to the fridge, plucked out the bottle of milk and measured four tablespoonfuls into the mixing bowl to join the rest of the ingredients. My next trip was to the fruit bowl. I picked the two lemons out from underneath the pile of overripe bananas and collected the grater on my return to the mixing bowl. My last job was to grate the rind from the two lemons. Of course, the sour juice managed to find a tiny cut on my hand and it REALLY stung!!

Isaac had been in the living room playing with his daddy but chose this moment to come and investigate what I was up to. He is a tad nervous of my electric whisk and he walked into the kitchen to see me clutching it ready for action. He took one look at the offending item and quickly backed out of the room! As the butter was extremely soft it took next to no time to combine everything together and form a smooth mixture. As I transferred it into the lined tin Isaac reappeared, sat on the floor with a book, and 'read' the story out loud. Once the cake was in the oven, he took the opportunity to take my hand and yank me into the living room at high speed. I sat down and he was soon on my lap with his book; it was clearly story time!!

After thirty five minutes of reading the same story over and over AND over again, it was time to get up and take the cake from the oven. It was well risen and a light golden brown. Rather frustratingly the cake had to cool in the tin. This was torture; I was dying to try a slice! After an hour of more stories and games the cake was cold and I was able to get on and make the lemon icing. Isaac joined me in the kitchen to survey the proceedings. The icing sugar cloud I created was of great amusement to him, but I can't say it had the same effect on me; I hate the stuff! Once the mountain of sifted icing sugar was in the bowl I moved on to the lemon juice. I cut a lemon in two and couldn't believe how pippy it was. I counted eleven pips in one half; now surely that has to be a record?! I had to add more than the suggested three tablespoonfuls of juice to get a runny consistency and I found it a pain to spread over the cake. It kept peeling off the top layer of cake and this resulted in lots of crumbs intermingling with the icing, grrrr!

Once the icing was set I could slice the cake into messy squares. Yippee, it was time to have a taste! The cake was gorgeously light and suitably lemony. The icing was sweet and, unsurprisingly, also lemony! What a wonderfully easy and tasty bake. These sort of recipes are the reason I love Mary Berry; they are simple to make and even easier to eat! 

Not exciting to look at but tasty all the same!!