Lemon Getting-What-You-Want Cake

A few weeks ago I found a (fiction) book called 'Meet Me At The Cupcake Cafe', by Jenny Colgan.
It's about a girl called Issy, who works in the City, but loves to bake. She is made redundant from her job and then ends up setting up her own bakery in London, led with the advice of baker grandpa Joe.

Do you know what this means? I have found my biography! The author doesn't know this yet, but in 20 years I may follow in the footsteps of Miss Issy - clearly this book was written for me!

Except for the bit where my grandpa is called Joe. And hopefully I won't get made redundant, seeing as I haven't even started my job in the City yet.

Oh dear, maybe I've just jinxed it...

The book starts each chapter with a recipe, and this is one of my favourites in there, called 'Lemon-Getting-What-You-Want-Cake'. The idea is that you make this cake, you feel empowered, you give people this cake, they go yuuuummmm and then they do whatever you want.

This has yet to work for me. But, using cakes for bribery is something every baker should use to their advantage ;-)

I don't really have many baker's notes for this cake, it's pretty much a sponge cake flavoured with lemon. I was supposed to use a loaf tin, but I couldn't find mine, so a round cake tin did very nicely.

I strong advise you to read the recipe written by Jenny Colgan, it's really cute! Unfortunately, I'm afraid that if I reproduce it here I will get sued by her publishers. So, please have a generic lemon cake recipe instead =)

Lemon Cake Cake 4oz/115g self-raising flour, sifted 1 tsp baking powder 4oz/ 115g softened butter 4oz/ 115g caster sugar 2 large eggs Grated zest of 1 lemon Juice of 1 lemon Icing 2oz/ 60g icing sugar 2 tsps water 1 tsp lemon juice Preheat the oven to 375F/190C. Grease a loaf tin. Sift flour and baking powder, then add the rest of the ingredients and beat well. Spoon into the loaf tin (or cake tin as I used). Cook for 20 mins, or until the cake is yellow (not brown), and not damp inside. A skewer inserted into the middle of the cake should come out clean. Whilst the cake is still warm, spoon the icing on top, so that is drips onto the sides and into the “pores” of the cake. This may look ugly, but the best cakes usually do, right? This may or may not get you what you want after giving someone a slice. But either way, it’s pretty tasty nonetheless :)