Sansa's Lemon Cakes
Today I had to make something to take to a Jacob's Table gathering and I (eventually) settled on some cakes. After noticing the chocolate eyes for the Ooey Gooey Chocolate Cakes were in stock I abandoned the idea of the eyeless version of this recipe so I could do the proper thing next week for Halloween. If not chocolate, then lemon: so I thought of Sansa's Lemon Cakes.
I didn't particularly want to do a straightforward lemon drizzle cake, so I looked around a bit. I do have a Game of Thrones Cookbook which I seem to recall had a crumpet-style recipe, but I couldn't find the book to check and that idea just seemed wrong for cakes. So I looked around online and found Geeky Chef's version which has a lightly candied lemon slice baked at the bottom of each cake. Brilliant.
Then I was getting ingredients and I realised I fancied trying a Honey Cake - which I have never tried before. So I found James Martin's recipe for the BBC. These two form the basis for what I did.
Candied Lemon Slices
- 12 slices of lemons
- Water and Sugar to make a syrup - approximately equal amounts
The Cakes
- 170g/6oz clear honey (about half a jar)
- 140g/5oz butter
- 85g/3oz light brown sugar
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 200g/7oz self raising flour, sieved
- Juice and zest of two small lemons
- Heat Water and Sugar in a pan to make a syrup.
- Once Sugar is dissolved, add lemon slices.
- Allow to simmer/boil for 20 minutes or so, or, frankly, while you're making the cake mixture.
- Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas 3 and butter and line the bottom of a 7in/18cm cake tin or grease 12 muffin tray holes.
- Measure the honey, butter and sugar into a large pan. Add a zest and juice of the lemons and heat gently until melted. (I let it boil because I wasn't paying attention, didn't seem to do it much harm...)
- Remove from the heat and mix in the eggs and flour.
- Place one candied lemon slice into each muffin hole (or arrange at bottom of large tin).
- Spoon into the cake tin/muffin tray and bake for 40-45 minutes (less for the muffin style - I also found it important to turn them in the oven - may just be my oven) until the cake is springy to the touch and shrinking slightly from the sides of the tin.
- Cool slightly in the tin before turning out onto a wire rack.
- Stab Lemon Cakes with a Needle (or cocktail stick) and pour over some of the left over syrup mixture
So, there you have it, my version of Sansa's Lemon Cakes!
Alex
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