Luscious Lemon Cake

Luscious lemon cake 

I couldn't find my fluted ring pan. I also iced and cut it when cake was still hot because I was dying to try it!

Ingredients

Melted butter or margarine, for greasing

4 large eggs

1 + 1/4 cups caster sugar

180g butter, melted, cooled

3 lemons, rind finely grated, juiced (1/3 cup)

1 + 1/4 cups self-raising flour

Lemon icing

6 tbs fresh lemon juice

50g butter, melted and cooled

360g (2 1/4 cups) pure icing sugar, sifted

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C (160 fan forced). Lightly brush a 24cm (3-litre/12-cup) fluted ring pan with the melted butter or margarine to grease.

Beat the eggs and caster sugar in a large mixing bowl with electric beaters until very pale and thick and a ribbon forms when beaters are lifted. 

Combine the cooled butter with the lemon rind and 80mls (1/3 cup) of the lemon juice (reserve the remaining juice to make the icing). 

Sift half of the self- raising flour over the top of the egg mixture and fold in very gently with a large metal spoon until just combined. Add the butter and lemon mixture and fold in gently. Sift over the remaining self-raising flour and fold in very gently to combine.
Pour the mixture into the greased pan and bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes or until golden and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean**. 

Stand cake in pan for 10 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool. 

To make the lemon icing, combine the reserved lemon juice and butter in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until butter is melted. Place the icing sugar in a bowl and stir in the lemon juice mixture with a wooden spoon until the icing is smooth.

Place the cake on the wire rack over a tray and pour the icing evenly over the cake in a steady stream, allowing the icing to run down the sides (the excess icing will drip onto the tray). Allow the icing to set.

**different cooking time will be required if you use a 'solid' pan, ie square, round or rectangle. The donut shaped ring tin will take half the time of a 'solid' tin. Also note that if you use a 'solid' tin, there is a very good chance that it will sink in the middle.

Broccolini, Bacon and Lemon Pasta

We used plain old Broccoli for this photographed. It was also a tad overcooked (thanks hubby!) so was mushy.
DON'T overcook it!

Serves 4
Ingredients
400g Rigatoni (ridged tube shaped pasta)
2 bunches of Broccolini (400g), trimmed and sliced
1/4 cup olive oil (good quality)
4-6 rashers of bacon, remove rind, chopped.
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 tablespoon of lemon zest (or zest of one lemon)
1/2 cup of finely grated parmesan (I use Romano instead). Get proper parmesan from a deli.
Sea Salt
Method
* Place large saucepan of salted water on to boil. Once rolling boil is achieved, add pasta.
* 1 minutes before pasta is cooked (refer to the packet you bought), add the Broccolini. Cook for further one minute. Drain and keep warm - in the large saucepan.
* Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in frypan. Add bacon and cook for 3-5 minutes or until crispy.
* Add garlic and lemon zest and cook for one minute or until fragrant.
* Add to pasta and stir through, adding remaining oil and sea salt to taste.
* Add parmesan andtoss to combine.