Sweet treats for work: Lemon Traybake
After the success of last week’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares, I decided to move on to something lighter and more fruity for this week’s sweet treat. I’m have been reading Annie Bell’s Gorgeous Cakes recently – the Mallow library is coming up trumps for brilliant cookbooks – and I have plenty of recipes bookmarked to try. Annie is not afraid of using her kitchen appliances and, after finally getting a kitchen to call my own, I now have both food processor (one of the first birthday gifts from the not-yet-Husband – he knew how to set up things for future baking happiness!) and KitchenAid mixer out and at my disposal. This recipe uses the food processor, taking minutes to put together although, if I were in my NZ kitchen appliance-less days, it would also be manageable with a wooden spoon, although I have to say that I avoided any creaming recipes for the whole year I was living there. I’m sure it would also work with any mixer at your disposal.
Moist and crunchy when fresh, getting steadily damper although no less tasty as it sits in the tin, this Lemon Traybake got a resounding thumbs up from my main testers – the Husband and the Polish Colleague. Now to figure out next week’s recipe!
Lemon Traybake
Butter – 225g, diced and at room temperature
Caster sugar – 225g
Eggs – 3
Milk – 150g
Self-raising flour – 225g
Baking powder – 1½ teaspoon
Lemons – 2, zested and juiced
Demerara sugar – 100g
Preheat the oven to 190˚C for conventional ovens, 170˚C for fan ovens and butter a swiss roll tin (30 x 23 x 4cm).
Using the blade attachment on a food processor, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Drop in the eggs, one by one, scraping down the sides of the bowl as you go along then add the milk and blend into the mixture.
Sieve the flour and baking powder together then, with the processor running, gradually spoon into the funnel, continuing until everything is incorporated, adding the lemon zest at the end.
Scrape and pour into the prepared tin and level the surface. Bake for 30 minutes, until firm, golden and, when tested with a skewer, it comes out clean from the centre. Using the skewer, prick the cake all over. Mix the lemon juice and Demerara sugar together and spoon over the warm cake. Allow to cool on a wire cake rack and cut into squares or slices when cold.
Adapted from Gorgeous Cakes by Annie Bell.
I love lemony things, will have to try those. 😉
Me too – I think I was trying to recreate the texture of the fab Lemon Poppyseed Muffins that I grab every time I see the California Market Bakery stall at a market. Perhaps I’ll have to add some poppy seeds next time…
Caroline, check out Rachel Allen’s chocolate, caramel & hazelnut bars for next week. Val’s kitchen has them in the archives. Sinful!!! Love lemon and these look fab!
Oooh! That sounds really good, Sarah. I’ve a whole kilner jar of hazlenuts at my disposal at the moment so any recipes are very welcome. Will definitely go looking for that one.
I was just thinking about some kind of lemony dessert 🙂 These look fab. I feel a baking session coming on…The kids chocolate party cake in Annie Bell’s book is also pretty good – I used to make it for the ‘big kids’ at work all the time and it went down well.
I make something similar in a loaf tin. Your idea to make it in a tray is much better. You would get more crunchy top to soft cake.
That cookbook is great, isn’t it, Jen? I saw it in Books for Cooks at the weekend and had to resist pushing it on my fellow browsers!I can imagine it would be great in a loaf tin, too, Barbara, although I have to say that it lasted very succesfully made in my ever-useful swiss roll tin. As the week went along it stopped being crunchy, the sugar just dissolving into the cake and making it nicely moist.
Glad to hear that, Byrony. It’s ages since I made it but, now you’ve reminded me, I think I’ll have to go back into my own archives!