the lemon cake

afterwork coffee and cake in the sun with the ladies on a monday. nothing not to like. only one of us actually worked that day, by the way. the rest of us baked.


Hummingbird Bakery Lemon bars

For the base:

• 290g flour
• 70g icing sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 2 teaspoons of organic lemon zest
• 230g cold unsalted butter

For the topping:

• 210g sugar
• 1dl fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 3 teaspoons of organic lemon zest
• 3 eggs

1. Preheat your oven to 170ºC and line a 25x30cm (or something like that) baking form with baking paper. By lining the baking form, it's easier to remove and cool the cake - plus, you don't have to clean the form afterwards!
2. Add all of the ingredients for the base (icing sugar, lemon zest, butter, salt and flour) into a large bowl and stir (or pound) until it resembles bread crumbs. You can do this process in a free standing electric mixer or with a hand held electric mix, but it’s less cleaning not to :)
3. Empty the bread crumb-like mixture into your prepared baking form and pack it down tightly until an even layer covers the base.
4. Put this into the oven for around 20 minutes or until golden brown all over.
5. When the base has cooked, remove from the oven (keep the oven switched on), puncture back into a flat form if necessary, and start to prepare the lemon topping.
6. Mix together the lemon juice, lemon zest, eggs and sugar until smooth and well combined.
7. When the base has cooled slightly (leave it for around 20 minutes otherwise the topping will curdle as soon as you put it on top due to the eggs in the topping mixture.),  pour the topping onto the cooled base and return to the oven for a further 20 minutes until the top is slightly golden and the topping has set.
9. Allow to cool completely and put in the fridge over night/for 4 hours/in the freezer for an hour so it'll cool before your friends arrive. Then sprinkle with icing sugar and slice up into pure goodness!