Crumbly lemon cake

This cake is based on a recipe by Dan Lepard originally published quite some time ago in June 2009. It can be found here. The idea of using oats in a cake was intruiging as I've been using oats regularly in one of my favourite breads. I had to modify the recipe a little and substituted more flour for the ground almonds specified. I used self raising flour rather than plain and omitted the baking powder and since I had lemons rather than oranges available I used the zest of two of those instead. I recall the cake taking longer than 40 minutes to bake, probably nearer 50-60 mins. I also (rather unfortunately) ran out of time to make the syrup for the cake, so all in all I didn't really follow the recipe very closely, which would probably explain why the cake was very nice but not exceptional.

As the title of the post suggests the cake was crumbly and on the dry side, due to the combined efforts of no syrup, possibly slightly overcooking it and dry flour rather than moist almonds, all of which would tend to make the cake moister had I used them. However, I did enjoy the slightly chewy texture that the oats lent to the cake, although it was crumbly it definitely didn't dissolve in the mouth. I think that Dan is quite right in saying that this would be delicious with a tumble of summer berries and a big dollop of creme fraiche or greek yogurt - yum! I think I'll make it again but definitely add the syrup as I feel sure that this would make a big difference to the flavour and texture. I'd probably also use three lemons rather than two and try to bake it for a little less time.

However, I am perhaps overly harsh, it was a delicious cake and gained plenty of compliments from my colleagues. In the end I made up a simple lemon glace icing for it, which complemented the lemon flavour of the cake nicely.