Year Two Day One Hundred and Forty One - Lemon Syrup Cake

Dear all, 

I am on a baking spree so decided to bake Mutter's Lemon Syrup cake that she sent me via email a few weeks ago. I have also discovered that I love lemon flavoured things.  

Anyway, I was a English recipe ( so therefore the odds were stacked against me from the get go in terms of using the 'correct' measurements), so I started converting oz into cups using my very 'relaxed' method of calculation (ie. using my coffee mug). The moral of the story is: make sure you use the correct quanities (the reason will be revealed below). This is also fairly ambiguous when you start researching the correct coversions online:

Dry Goods

All-Purpose Flour: 1 cup = 4.5 oz

Bread Flour: 1 cup = 4.8 oz

Cake Flour: 1 cup = 3.9 oz

Pastry Flour: 1 cup = 4.25 oz

Whole Wheat Flour: 1 cup = 4.25

Cornmeal, coarse: 1 cup = 4.85 oz

Cornmeal, fine: 1 cup = 6.3 oz

Oats, rolled: 1 cup = 3 oz

I am confused. So anyway, I heated the oven to 350oF and put the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

• 6 oz self raising flour ( I used 'unbeached' flour?)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt

Then add 'soft creaming margarine' ( I used butter) and sugar..

.. and the finely grated rind of one lemon ( I used a cheese grater.. that seemed 'fine' at the time). 

• Finely grated rind of one lemon
• 4 oz soft creaming margarine
• 4 oz castor sugar

I then added 2 large [organic] eggs, walnuts and I TOTALLY FORGOT about the milk.. hahahah. Whilst writing this post, I now realise where I went wrong. Ahhhhh baking. 

• 2 large eggs
• 1 oz coarsely chopped walnuts
• 2 tbs milk.

So, i started to mix the ingredients together and wondered why it was so hard to mix ( I had forgotten the milk)... but I battled on until the mixture resembled a hard ball. 

I then filled a loaf tin with grease-proof paper and placed the 'ball' into the tin, squishing it down so it resembled a 'loaf' shape of sorts. 

In the meantime, I tried to skype Mutter to air my concerns about the 'lemon ball' but sadly they were out. So, I battled on and made the syrup ( very easy). Add lemon juice to icing sugar and leave to soak in! I got this bit right. 

• Juice of one Lemon
• 4 oz icing sugar

I put the loaf in the over and after about one hour, it had 'started' to rise and turn a little brown.

Once I took the cake out of the oven, I pricked the surface of the cake with a fork ( harder than you might think actually **see large hole towards the left hand side of the cake) and poured the lemon syrup all over it. 

There was a LOT of syrup, but I poured it all in anyway, until the cake looked like a Lemon-bath. 

I then left the cake and the lemon juice did actually soak in. After the cake cooled, Darren and I decided to try it. It smelt very lemony with a texture that resembled a scone or biscuit rather than a 'cake' but needless to say, it wasn't bad! D's first comment was 'wow, that's very falvourfull' and we have actually almost eaten half already! Not a total failure and well worth it!