• Lemon and almond Christmas cake

    Serves: 1 cake

    Ingredients

    • 200g unsalted butter
    • 200g unrefined white sugar
    • 2 large eggs
    • 1 large lemon, zest and juice
    • 200g ground almonds
    • 200g cake flour
    • 5ml (1 tsp) baking powder

    Instructions

    1

    Preheat the oven to 180°C.

    2

    Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy, add theeggs 1 at a time, then the lemon zest and juice. Stir in the ground almonds and sift in the flour and baking powder.

    3

    Place in a cake tin lined with greased baking paper (keep butter wrappers folded up in the fridge to grease baking paper when needed) and bake for 45 – 50 minutes. Test by inserting a skewer – if it is clean when removed the cake is cooked through. Leave it to cool for 15 minutes, removefrom the tin and leave to cool totally on a rack.

    4

    This cake is blissfully plain – for a festive touch decorate with glacé or dried fruits and nuts.

    Recipe adapted from Harvest Diaries, by Christine Stevens (Sunbird, R230)