Lively Lemon

It's hard to believe that the end of semester is already upon us. I'm ashamed to admit that I was initially wary of taking on too much teaching and was seriously not looking forward to my med tutes. Nearly fourteen weeks later, I'm happy to eat my humble pie and say that I've got a wonderful group who have made every Monday and Friday morning much more lively and entertaining than it would have been otherwise. My group have also good-naturedly been my guinea-pigs for several culinary treats and today I guiltily attempted something new, seeing as I won't be able to make anything for the laste tute next week. This recipe is taken from Stefano de Pieri's book that revolves around Italian cooking. I'm still too afraid to attempt the panna cotta or tiramisu, so they'll have to settle for lemon cake instead. I did intend to post this on the far superior Flagrant Food Fawning, but am having some trouble logging in. Maybe Google really is more sinister than I first thought after all?

125 g unsalted butter
220 g castor sugar
1 tbsp lemon rind
2 eggs
150 g self-raising flour, sifted
75 g plain flour, sifted
125 ml milk
125 ml lemon juice
60 g castor sugar, extra

Pre-heat oven to 180 o C/350 o F. Grease a high ~20 cm round baking tin and line the bottom with baking paper.
Beat the butter (cut it into small chunks first), sugar and rind until you get something that looks like cake sponge.
Add eggs one at a time, beating until well combined.
Add the sifted flours, alternating with addition of milk.
Spoon the mixture into the tin and bake for 45 minutes - the cake should have risen substantially and look golden on top.
Mix the lemon juice and extra castor sugar thoroughly, pouring over the cake while it's hot and still in the tin.
Allow the cake to cool completely before turning out. Since the top is so sticky from the juice and sugar, it will get stuck on the plate if still warm when it gets inverted ... as I discovered.