Luscious Lemon Cake

I am new to blogging but not to baking, definitely not. Initially i never estimated that food blogging has become an industry on its own in the cyber world and it feels so good that some excellent food blogs are coming from house wives and moms, even working women manage to take out time to fulfill their passion. As Deeba from Passionate about Baking rightly said that baking/cooking and taking pictures is very therapeutic. Its overwhelming to be a part of all the hustle and bustle going on in the world of food blogging like photography events, contests, theme based posts etc. I am a new bie and as my first step, this post is dedicated to Monthly Mingle for this month's theme Spring Cakes.

Here in Middle East, spring is for a brief time period. To go about with the Spring Cakes theme i picked up a very nice recipe of Lemon Cake from Martha Stewart. A plain cake has always been a great combination with evening tea and whats better if it has a burst of freshly squeezed lemon juice and zest. The moistness and lightness of this cake is owed to yogurt which is my favourite ingredient in cakes. To give it a 'spring-y' look i made candied flowers from lemon peel which didnt turn out very good but they were not that bad. Here is how it goes:


Ingredients:

Butter 1 cup
Castor sugar 2 cups
Eggs 5
Baking powder 1/2 tsp
Baking soda 1/2 tsp
Juice and Zest of 2 lemons
Low fat yogurt 3/4 cup
Lemon essence (optional) few drops
Flour 3 cups

Method:

• Beat butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
• Add in eggs one at a time and continue beating.
• Add zest, juice and essence in yogurt.
• Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda.
• Alternately add flour and yogurt in three steps while beating on a very low speed until everything is incorporated.
• Pour in 2 greased loaf tins .
• Bake in a pre-heated oven on gas mark 4 for 40-60 minutes until golden brown.