This is a very easy and quick to prepare cake, the perfect companion for a nice hot cup of tea. It is light and fluffy, not too sweet and quite refreshing from the lemon zest and juice.
You can choose to drape it in a sugar lemon drizzle as I did (because it was quick), or maybe a cream cheese frosting would be more of your taste. Either way, you have to try it, it is not a pretentious cake and suitable for any beginner.
The quantity of the lemon juice can be adjusted to your taste, I like sour things and I think next time I will add some more juice, but for “normal” people I think it might be ok. You will not feel the sourness, it will just make it fresh and light.
The cake recipe uses oil, and not butter, so that it does not make it too heavy. I used a mixture of neutral sunflower oil and olive oil, but feel free to use any oil you like, even coconut oil might be fine. I think the olive oil, together with the lemon, also makes the cake quite fresh. And the poppy seeds will brighten the look of it. To be honest, you cannot feel so much of their taste.
If you do decide to give it a try, please let me know if you liked it, or if you would tweak it in some way.
Lemon Poppy Seed Cake | Tea Cake
Ingredients
- 100 g sugar
- 100 g oil I used neutral sunflower oil and olive oil
- 100 g sour cream or yogurt
- 250 g flour
- 2 eggs
- 1 untreated lemon
- 30 g poppy seeds
- 50 g milk
- vanilla
- salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
Frosting:
- 50 powdered sugar
- 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C.
- Line a 17x8x8 cm baking tray with silicon mat or parchment paper.
- Heat the milk together with the vanilla and pour it over the poppy seeds.
- Beat the eggs with the sugar, zest of the lemon and salt, until a little fluffy.
- Add slowly the oil, and then the sour cream or yogurt.
- Add the juice of the lemon.
- Add half of the flour and mix just a little.
- Then add the other half of the flower with the baking soda and baking powder and mix with a spatula just until combined.
- Pour in the baking tray and insert into the preheated oven for 50 min or until an inserted toothpick will come out dry.
- Leave to cool 5 min in the tray. Take out and leave to cool on a rack.
- For the drizzle mix the powder sugar with lemon juice to get a runny consistency. Pour over the still warm cake.
