Lemon Trickle Cake

Another great Hugh-Fearnley Whittingstall recipe though one found in other places. This we made with Bob's Red Mill gluten-free baking flour. You can find it occasionally at Tesco or at iHerb.com (state-side but ship to ROI). It's a reliable blend of various gf flours and well worth the (slightly crazy) price.
If you're using plain baking flour, be sure to add some gf baking powder and baking soda (sodium bicarbonate).
For this quantity of flour, I used 1 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of baking soda. I also added some Xanthum gum to help with structure (about 1/2 tsp).

Ingredients (serves 10 generously)

• 175g butter, softened
• 125g caster sugar
• finely grated zest of 3 lemons
• 3 med eggs
• 175g self-raising flour
• pinch of sea salt
• splash of milk (optional)
• 80g icing sugar
• some lemon juice

Directions

1. Put butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat for 10 minutes with Kitchenaid or other electric blender - 5 min will do but 10 better.
2. Add zest and eggs, one  at a time and with a spoonful of flour in between to help binding
3. Sift remaining flour and salt into blow and fold. Add a little milk if mixture doesn't drop easily from spoon.
4. Spoon into loaf tin (I used 2lb, fitted comfortably, though non-gf might rise more) and smooth top. Don't forget to line with parchment paper.
5. Bake at 170C for 40-45 minutes.
6. When done, mix icing sugar and enough lemon juice make pliable and drizzle over cake in the loaf tin. First though, make plenty of 'holes' in the cake with a skewer to let the icing soak in well.
7. Leave into tin until cool, then turn out and slice.

By my reckoning, a decent slice weighs in at 30g CHO but go very light on the icing sugar and that can be nearer to 20g.

Lemon Tart

Mixture ready to pour into tartlets

I credit this recipe to David Lebovitz and it's a cracker. Haven't tried Rachel Allen's oft-cited version since I never seem to have enough cream. David's tart is real easy to make needing just good quality lemons. I leave the shortcrust pastry tart-making to Mssrs. Marks & Spencer until such time as I figure out a gf version.

Ingredients:

Finished tarts

• 1/2 cup (125 ml) freshly-squeezed lemon juice
• grated zest of one lemon, preferably unsprayed
• 1/2 cup (100 g) sugar
• 6 tablespoons (85 g) butter, salted or unsalted, cut into bits
• 2 large eggs
• 2 large egg yolks

Warm the juice, zest, sugar and butter in a pan. Beat the eggs in another medium-sized bowl and when melted, add some of the juice/butter mixture to the eggs and stir constantly. Then pour the egg mixture into the pan with the remaining juice/butter and stir until it bubbles gently.

These only need a few minutes in the oven to set as the tarts are usually pre-baked. These freeze well too so we make a batch.
And the results...