Elderflower, lemon and poppyseed cake

Today I've been making cakes to sell at a charity fundraising bake sale organised by Mags, who was a teacher at our school and became something of a surrogate mum to Lu when she was a teenager. She was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago and has been doing incredible fundraising ever since. The first of my contributions is this elderflower, lemon and poppyseed loaf cake with an elderflower icing.

Ingredients

6 oz butter

4 oz caster sugar

2 eggs

2 tbsp poppyseeds

1 tbsp elderflower cordial

Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated

Juice of half a lemon

8 oz self-raising flour

6 fl. oz milk

For the icing

4 oz icing sugar

3 tbsp elderflower cordial

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C and grease and line a 9x5 inch loaf tin.  
2. In a large mixing bowl cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.
3. Measure out the flour and set aside.
4. Add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture one at a time, followed by a large spoonful of flour between each egg.  Beat well after each addition.
5. Add the poppyseeds, elderflower cordial, lemon zest and juice and mix well.
6. Sift in half the remaining flour and fold together gently.
7. Add half the milk and beat to combine.
8. Sift in the remaining flour, beat and add the remaining milk and beat well.
9. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for about 45 mins until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the tins for 10 mins before removing from the tin and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.
10. To make the icing, sift the icing sugar into a small bowl and add the elderflower cordial. Beat together with a wooden spoon to form a smooth, thick paste.
11. Once the cake is cool, pour the icing over the top, allowing it to run down the sides (this is a bit messy, so you might want to put a sheet of baking paper under the wire rack to catch the drips). Set aside to allow the icing to harden.

Adapted from Peyton and Byrne's British Baking (the original recipe calls for orange blossom water, which I replaced with lemon juice - only because I didn't have any, but that sounds delicious too!)