This cake is a simple English treat – lemony but not overly so, nor too sweet, and perfect with some thick compote or a dollop of lemon curd on top.

I spent several hours on Friday night baking for the bake sale I mentioned participating in. I made double chocolate chunk cookies with sea salt and lemon-drenched lemon cake – two of my favourites! But of course, since I was packaging it up for other people I didn’t get a chance to steal myself a slice of cake and so I was left hankering for something lemony.

Enter this cake. Yes, lemony, but a completely different beast to that other one. This is much more of a simple everyday cake, jazzed up with some lemon zest and juice and perfect if you’re in the mood for something sweet but not dessert-like or cloying.

I always thought that Madeira cake came from the islands of Madeira, but no!  Evidently, centuries back in the U.K. it was popular to eat a slice of this cake with a glass of Madeira wine. If you have some on hand then please give it a go and report back but personally I’d recommend it with a good cup of tea. Enjoy!

Madeira Cake
adapted from Nigella Lawson

Ingredients

• 240g/8.25oz softened unsalted butter
• 200g/7oz caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
• Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 3 large eggs
• 320g/ 2.5 cups all-purpose/plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 170ºC/330F. Butter a 9- by 5- inch (23 x 13 cm) loaf tin, buttered and dust with flour, tapping out excess. Set aside.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy and light, and add the lemon zest.
4. Add the eggs one at a time with a tablespoon of the flour for each egg to prevent the mixture curdling.
5. Gently mix in the rest of the flour and, finally, the lemon juice. Transfer batter to prepared pan and  sprinkle with about 2 tbsp sugar. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour or until a cake-tester comes out clean.
6. Remove to a wire rack, and let cool in the tin before turning out.

Cream tea is one of those quintessentially English things that people find so crushingly charming about the U.K. Many a visitor to our fair isles latches onto this tradition as a must-do activity. Places like The Ritz hotel offer scones in this fashion in intimidatingly fancy surrounds for scary prices. That whole thing is not my idea of a good time AT ALL. Too much pomp and circumstance when all I want is a good cuppa and a really good scone (and to not worry about slurping said cuppa or getting clotted cream on my chin).

I much prefer little tearooms with lace tablecloths, doilies, bad wallpaper, worse carpet, and honest-to-goodness scones and tea. It’s relaxed, admittedly somewhat “quaint”, but there’s no formality whatsoever, just people of all ilks enjoying a pot of tea and a classic English scone.

Since I know my readership is made up of mostly Americans, followed by Brits and others, I think a little explanation is probably needed.

Here’s the deal: American scones and English scones are very different. If you want some visual comparison. Here are some typically American scones. Round-shaped British scones can resemble North American biscuits in appearance, but scones are delicate, with a flaky texture and just a touch of sweetness, while biscuits are a richer, more buttery, decadent affair. Also, while scones are served as part of afternoon tea or as a sweet dessert, biscuits are served more as a bread, often with breakfast.

The standard scone recipe is pretty simple and combines flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, butter, and milk. Felicity Cloak wrote a wonderful piece on how to make the perfect scone which I read thoroughly before beginning this baking expedition. With such few and simple ingredients, I gave much thought to which raising agent would be best, choosing the best local butter for optimum flavour, and how to get the scones to rise evenly. Phew. We’re serious about our scones over here.

I have to say the result was lovely. Soft, fluffy little cakes with rich clotted cream and sweet, fruity jam – nothing could be better.

Scones with Clotted Cream and Jam
adapted from BBC Good Food and BBC Food

Ingredients

• 225g/ 8oz plain (all purpose) flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 55g/ 2oz/ 4 tbsp butter, at room temperature
• 25g/ 1oz caster (white) sugar
• 150ml/ 5fl oz milk
• really good jam, to serve
• clotted cream, to serve*

Directions

1. Heat your oven to 220C/425F. Grease a baking sheet and set aside. In a large bowl, sieve together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Working as quickly and lightly as possible with cold hands, rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.
2. Next, stir in the sugar and then the milk until you have a soft but firm dough. Turn out dough onto a floured work surface and with floured hands, pat the dough into a circle about 1.5cm to 2cm thick and cut out the scones using a 5cm/2in cutter or a small glass jar. Place rounds on baking sheet and lightly knead together the rest of the dough and stamp out more scones to use it all up.
3. Brush the tops of the scones with milk. Bake for 12-15 minutes until well risen and golden. Cool on a wire rack and serve with good jam and clotted cream. Makes 8-12 scones.

* With a 60% fat content, clotted cream is too thick to pour, but it’s not as thick as butter. You can find it at Lunds/Byerly’s in the Twin Cities or you can purchase it online. Certainly you could make it yourself but golly if I do not want to spend 8 hours tending to cream while it clots. At a pinch, you could substitute heavy whipping cream, whipped until thick and spreadable, or use crème fraîche. The real stuff costs a pretty penny but my god, it’s worth it.

What to do with some of that meyer lemon curd you made last week? Why put it in a cake of course!

I spent many a sneaky moment last week with my head buried in the fridge swiping spoonfuls of lemon curd straight from the jar. It’s that good, I needed no vehicle other than my trusty spoon.

But as delicious an activity as that was, I thought I might should find a more imaginative way to consume the second jar tucked away in my fridge. And so…cake!

This is a fun and delicious twist on the classic Victoria sponge cake (which is sandwiched with cream and jam). Instead of adding vanilla to the batter, I used a teaspoon of lemon zest although I don’t think the vanilla would go amiss now that I think of it. You could also use a teaspoon of lemon extract though honestly, the lemon curd provides all the tangy zing you need.

Victoria Sponge Cake with Lemon Curd

Ingredients

• knob of butter, melted
• 1 cup (8oz) butter, softened
• 1 cup (8oz) sugar
• 4 large free-range eggs
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1 cup (8oz) all-purpose flour, sifted (you may need a bit extra)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Lemon curd, for the filling
• Powdered sugar, to dust

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Gently heat the knob of butter in a pan and brush two 8 inch cake tins with the melted butter. Line the bottom of the two cake tins with a circle of greaseproof paper.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until pale and creamy, using an electric whisk or a wooden spoon. Beat well to ensure you get lots of air into the mixture.
3. Beat in the eggs one at a time. You want to avoid the mixture curdling, so that it stays airy. If it does curdle, add a tbsp of flour. Add the lemon zest and stir gently to combine.
4. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Fold the flour mixture into the wet ingredients using a large metal spoon (this will cut into the mixture better than a wooden spoon). Be careful not to over-mix it. Pour the mixture equally between the two cake tins and level.
5. Place in the oven and bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until the cakes are well-risen, spring back when pressed gently with a finger and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remove from the oven and set aside for 5 minutes, then remove from the tin and peel off the paper. Place onto a wire rack and let cool completely, about an hour.
6. Spread a thick layer of lemon curd on top of one of the cakes and sandwich the other on top. Dust with powdered sugar and serve.