Double whammy

So, apart from admiring my colourful kitchen all night, I did actually do some baking last night - TWO recipes in fact! They both have quite similar ingredients, and one of them needs to be kept for a few days before eating - so we should have pretty continuous fresh baking to munch on for the next week! Efficient.

Recipe #4: Damp Lemon & Almond Cake
Neither of these recipes have pictures - so thats possibly why I have never bothered to make them. I'm a very visual person, and if it looks delicious I might consider making it! Hence I have many unused recipes throughout various recipe books in my house.
This one was really easy, and I must say I think I am pretty much awesome at creaming butter and sugar together now. The only wee hiccup with this recipe was that I didn't have enough ground almonds - so I just used a little extra flour, and threw a few slivered almonds in for good measure.
These plain cakes all have such a pretty looking batter - it is so hard to not sit down with a spoon and just eat it instead of putting it into the oven. And this one in particular smelt so beautiful! I said in an earlier post that I'm not that keen on almonds, but this batter - with its combination of lemon juice, zest and almond essence - was enough to make me drool. All the same, it made it into the cake pan and into the oven!

I would SO win a butter-creaming competition

I even got a bit flash and sprinkled a
few almonds on top - how pretty!

And success!!!! I managed to be diligent and keep a close eye on my cake to make sure I didn't burn it this time - and a helpful wee comment from Nigella: "You may need to loosely cover your cake with tinfoil to keep the top from burning." An absolute GEM of information that would have been really helpful for Recipe #1! Thanks Nigella. So anyway this recipe turned out pretty much perfectly, even if I do say so myself. My best success story yet. Now Chris just has to wait until the weekend until we can upwrap it and eat to our hearts content! I feel a picnic coming on....
Chris' rating: to be confirmed!

Recipe #5: Lemon-Syrup Loaf Cake
So after dinner, and about an hour or so of taking green-and-blue themed photos, I gave Recipe #5 a go. This one was even easier than the first one to make - although after grating and juicing 4 lemons I am SO over not having a proper citrus juicer! (I'd really love one of those green glass ones - something to look out for on one of my bargain-hunting outings!). And Nigella's tinfoil trick saved the day again - not a single burn mark to be seen! Like I said, I wish I knew that trick for the Madeira cake. This cake also had a lemon syrup that you pour over it while it is still hot - luckily it is hard to mess that up as I got a bit carried away doing dishes and left it bubbling away on the stove for quite a while. As soon as the loaf came out of the oven I poured the sticky, sweet-smelling syrup all over the top and left it to cool - Chris was pretty dismayed when he found out that he wasn't allowed to eat this one while it was hot either, it was too soggy to pull out of the pan! I did however put some in both of our lunchboxes for work today, and I have to say, Lemon-Syrup Loaf Cake kicks Madeira Cakes ass! It is delicious. I got a message from Chris today saying that he would've given me a 5/5 rating for this one, but I didn't put enough in his lunch box, so I was marked down.

What a sweet boy.
Chris' rating: 4/5.

Check out the syrupy-goodness! Yum.