Sweet and Simple Bake - St Clement's Drizzle Cake

I was so pleased when I found out this months recipe for Sweet and Simple was a St Clement's Drizzle Cake. St Clement's is my Mother-In-Laws all time favourite flavour combo. When we go out for a meal she will order a St Clements to drink, for her birthday this year I made her the Hairy Bikers St Clements cake (that was one huge cake) and when everyone came around to visit on Saturday I made her this Drizzle Cake too. The recipe was very straight forward, I chose to make two smaller loafs which worked out to be the most brilliant tip ever, we had one cake with afternoon tea and then the family got to take the extra loaf home with them for dessert.

St Clement's Drizzle Cake

175g caster sugar

175g softened butter

Grated zest and juice of 1 large lemon (mine was only the small side so I ended up using 1 and half)

Grated zest and juice of 1 large orange

4 tbsp milk

2 eggs

175g SR flour

3 tbsp granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan.

Grease and line the base of 1 large (900g) or 2 small (450g) loaf tins.

Place the caster sugar, butter and zest of the lemon and orange in a bowl and beat together until pale and creamy. Add the milk and then beat in the eggs, one at a time, with a spoon of flour to prevent the mixture from curdling. Mix in the remaining flour. Spoon into the prepared tins and level the surface flat.

Bake in the oven for about 45 mins for a large cake or 30 mins for smaller cakes or until they are golden and a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre of the cake.

While the cake is cooking, place the lemon and orange juice in a saucepan, bring to the boil and allow to reduce in quantity to about 3 tbsp. Leave to cool and then stir in the granulated sugar so it just starts to dissolve.

As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, prick several times with a skewer, then slowly pour the lemon and orange sugar all over the top, letting it soak into the cake. Leave to cool completely in the tin before turning out and cutting into slices to serve.

Makes 1 large or 2 smaller cakes

The drizzle topping ensured that the cake was very moist inside, I found it tended to be quite crumbly though. Not in a dry way, just in a fresh from the oven kind of way. I think this was probably down to the fact though that the cake for afternoon tea was still slightly warm when it was turned out. Nobody seemed able to wait for it to cool completely!

Now you may have noticed a slight lack of photo's of the finished product. I have no excuses, I just forgot to take photo's of it once I took it out of the tin! Oops.

All in all it was a great success and may even be finding its way into Mum-In-Laws Christmas hamper this year. Please head over to the Sweet and Simple Bake round-up to see everyone's wonderful creations.