Individual lemon and lime drizzle cakes

Citrussy lemon and lime flavours are always popular with my colleagues, but spring seems a particularly appropriate time to use them, zesty flavours heralding the longer (and hopefully warmer!) days before the summer fruit really makes an appearance. You can tell I'm behind with my posting can't you! I did make these a while ago, but if I don't record them now, they'll be forgotten forever, a real shame! J has now given me a lovely little notebook to record the recipes I make up as I go along. Sadly I made these before receiving this gift, and since it's a while since I made them, I'll have to post what I'm fairly sure I did..... (and the annoying thing is that I absolutely know I've seen the recipe written down somewhere - in a notebook, amongst millions of other notes to myself....)

Katie's post here over at Apple and Spice reminded me that I too had that particular baking tin. I bought it a while ago (in the sale ;-)) and had completely forgotten about it, but thought at the time of purchase that it would make great individual cakes in a more interesting shape than cupcakes. So it was decided - lemon and lime, and a drizzle too.

Lemon and lime drizzle cakes

Ingredients

120g self raising flour

120g soft butter

120g caster sugar

2 eggs

zest of 1 lemon and 1 lime (unwaxed if possible)

75g lemon and lime marmalade

Method

- Preheat the oven to gas 4/180C. You could use a 12 hole muffin tin but because of the syrup later on, I wouldn't line them with paper cases, just grease well, or grease your specially shaped eclair tin well with butter.

- Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add eggs beating after each addition and then flour. Mix well until combined.

- Add the lemon and lime zest and marmalade and beat the mixture until the marmalade is well mixed in.

- Divide the mixture between the tins and bake for around 25-35 minutes (sorry that's so vague, I can't honestly remember how long it took, although I guess it was probably more like 25 than 35!)

In the meantime, make the syrup.

- Dissolve around 100g icing sugar in the juice of the lemon and lime you used the zest from, plus the juice of another lemon (again this is by memory, I'm not entirely sure how much juice I used, but this is what I'd use if I did it again) by heating gently in a saucepan over a low flame.

- When cooked (feel springy and cake tester inserted comes out clean) remove from the oven, but leave in the tins.

- Poke holes in the cakes with either a fine skewer or a cocktail stick and pour over the syrup, trying to make sure that it goes into the top of the cakes as well as running down the sides.

- Leave to cool before enjoying. These would probably be good with a good dollop of creme fraiche on the side. Yum!

I think this photo makes the cake look not only pretty enormous (they aren't!) but also really, really reminds me of a cruise liner... just me? Perhaps I need a holiday more than I thought!

Sweet and sticky from the syrup, but not as zingy as I would have hoped. Disappeared pretty quickly at work all the same though!