THE SMALL THINGS: Elderflower & Lemon Drizzle Cake

NEIL CORDER (C) 

I've had an awful start to the week: Crashed laptops, lost ATM cards and an email just in from my middle son saying: " Sister Rose said I have sprained my pinky on my right hand". He's copied his father in too, just for good measure. Clearly overwrought mothers cannot be trusted with breaking news like this.

It's always the small things that tip one over the edge.

I sat in the carpark and sobbed on the phone to my husband 9000 miles away wailing about the pool being green and the dogs chewing everything and it all being too much. Lucy found me and dragged me off to Cafe Bloom for a cappuccino and an Eggs Florentine to restart the week. It worked. I've put myself back together again.

Sometimes, like today, you just need one thing to go right. Perfection without too much effort. This cake is it. It's a modest little sponge but it just seems to work out brilliantly every time and I've seriously challenged this recipe: I've over baked it. I've put it into a too bigger tin. It's been baked at midnight in haste after a rowdy night out. Each time it has come out perfectly, which in my book makes it Top Dog. We're also lucky to have Elder trees growing all over the place and many locals make their own cordial.

So if you're having a rubbish day and you need to pull yourself together, bake this cake. It works.

Elderflower & Lemon Drizzle Cake

Oven: 180C, 350F
1 x 20 cm springform tin, greased and lined with baking paper

Ingredients

225g butter, softened
225g caster sugar
4 large eggs
225g self raising flour
Zest & juice of one lemon
150ml *kishmish elderflower cordial
2 tablespoons granulated white sugar

Method

1. Beat butter and sugar together with hand mixer until pale and fluffy.
2. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add 2 tablespoons of flour with the last egg to prevent curdling
3. Zest lemon and sprinkle over
4. Sift in flour and fold in with 2 tablespoons of hot water
5. Bake in middle of oven for 40 to 45 minutes
6. Reduce cordial to 100ml in a small saucepan
7. Prick top of cake with a toothpick
8. Stir lemon juice, sugar and reduced cordial together but don't let the sugar dissolve
9. Pour quickly and evenly over the cake. Wait for about 10 minutes until it has dried to a pretty crust

Eat with a good friend and a cup of tea.

Feel restored.

NEIL CORDER (C)