Luscious lemon (or lime) cake

Hi everyone!

It seems like I'm in a lemony-limey mood lately. This recipe is from an Irish colleague of mine from when I worked in Barcelona. It was sort of an unwritten rule for everybody at work to take a sweet, a cake, chocolates or some other snack into the office every once in a while. This lemon cake was an absolute success resulting in an enthusiastic back and forth of e-mails with recipes the next day. I have made this cake at least twenty times since then. Hasn't failed on me once...well, actually, I tried melting the butter once, instead of beating up the sugar and butter at room temperature, because of the lack of an electronic mixer. Tip: do not melt the butter!

So for this lemon (I used limes today) cake we need:

- 170g butter (room temperature)
- 250g white sugar
- 3 eggs
- 250g flour + 2 generousteaspoon baking powder
- 1 and a half lemons/limes (grated and juiced)
- 6 tablespoons milk
- 6 tablespoons icing sugar

Use a 26 cm baking tin and butter it before use. Preheat your oven to a moderate heat (170-180 degrees Celcius, but this can differ per oven).

Preparation:

1. Make sure you leave the butter out of the fridge for a while so it can soften a little before preparing the recipe.
2. Beat butter and sugar together until soft and creamy.
3. Add the eggs one by one and beat them until they are completely incorporated into the butter mixture.
4. Mix the baking powder and the flour and fold it into the egg, butter and sugar cream.
5. Grate the skin of the lemons/limes and add it as well.
6. Now add the milk and gently stir it all together, making sure no flour bubbles are formed.
7. Pour the cake batter into the greased baking tin.
8. Bake the oven for approximately 30 minutes or until just firm. Check the firmness by sticking a fork or toothpick in the middle of the cake while still in the oven.
9. Leave the cake to cool for about 10 minutes before removing from the baking tin.
10. Meanwhile, mix the icing sugar with some of the lemon/lime juice.
11. Once the cake has cooled down, prick the top of the cake with a for and pour the lemon juice mixture over it.

You can either serve the cake on its own cold or hot or even better, hot with vanilla icecream!

Once again the cake turned out perfect! Surely yours will too!

Kim