Jonathan and I did some baking the other weekend and decided to make something different to our usual cupcakes which we make to death! As I am still holding my friend Katy's recipe book to ransom we had a look through and settled on making a loaf. The lemon and thyme loaf to be exact. It sounded a bit different and we both love lemon and thyme, so away we went!
The recipe called for lemon thyme which we have never heard of, or seen in the supermarket, so we used regular thyme for our loaf.
The recipe called for lemon thyme which we have never heard of, or seen in the supermarket, so we used regular thyme for our loaf.
You will need:
Sponge -
190g unsalted butter
190g plain flour
Zest of 2 unwaxed lemons
3 tsp of finely chopped
190g caster sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
25ml soured cream
Syrup -
40g caster sugar
Zest & juice of 1 lemon
2 tsp of finely chopped
A loaf tin
What to do:
Preheat oven to 170C and grease a loaf tin with butter and a dusting of flour.
Using a whisk slowly beat together the butter, lemon zest, thyme leaves and sugar until light and fluffy. Break the eggs in to the bowl one at a time mixing well after each addition.
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt then add to the mixture in two batches and mix together. Add the soured cream and then pour the batter into the loaf tin.
Bake in the oven for 40 - 50 minutes or until the sponge is firm to the touch or a skewer inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out with no batter stuck to it.
While the loaf is cooking make the syrup. Place all of the ingredients into a small saucepan along with 40ml of water. Bring this to the boil, allowing it to reduce by about half and then pour over the cooked loaf as soon as it comes out of the oven.
Allow to cool in the tin then transfer to a wire rack. Cool completely before serving.
The loaf turned out really well considering we have never made anything like this before. We ate a piece almost immediately, like you do, but it tasted even better the following day once the flavours has spliced a bit more. The syrup topping had soaked into some of the sponge so every now and then we got a real hit of spongey lemony goodness which was so tasty!
We ate the loaf on its own mainly, but we had it with a scoop of vanilla Haagen Dazs one night and that was absolutely yummy.
The Cake Days book has a few different loaf recipes and we will definitely be trying another very soon!
Yum!
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