The recipe calls this a St Clement's Cake because it uses lemon and orange juice but as I had run out of lemons it is just a Drizzle cake in my book.....
It is also a fatless sponge which I cannot recall ever baking. I have always used the basic sponge mixture with varying results. I hate to make excuses but since I have been cooking with electricity in my current flat, I have yet to have a successful sponge which rises properly. I know it is a poor workman who blames his tools so I have tested this by borrowing a friend's kitchen, making a sponge and using her cooker - gas. Rose like a dream. I have more or less given up on expecting a good result here at Chateau Random which is sad.
So had a go at this. Very simple recipe which I took from a magazine:
150g (5½ oz) caster sugar; three eggs (medium size); 150g (5½)oz self raising flour; ½ teaspoon baking powder; finely grated zest and juice of one lemon; finely grated zest and juice of one orange; 50g (½oz) icing sugar
Line a 8" square tin with baking parchment, set oven to Gas Mark 4/180C/fan 160c. Whisk eggs and sugar with electric whisk for 2-3 mins until thick and pale. Sift in flour and baking powder and add the lemon and orange zest. Fold in with spatula being very careful not to knock out the air you have just whisked in. Go gently. Put in tin and bake for 15-20 mins until golden or firm to the touch.
Leave in tin. Poke holes in the top of the cake (I used a knitting needle) and pour in a syrup made with 1 tablespoonful of caster sugar with the orange and some of the lemon juice. Leave to soak in the tin for at least 2 hours.
Sift icing sugar in bowl and stir in enough of remaining lemon juice to make a smooth icing. When the cake is ready to take out of the tin drizzle icing over cake and add decorations of choice.
As well as not having a lemon so just used orange and it worked just as well, I have to purchase a new square tin as my old ones were rusty and thrown out, so I baked this in a round 8" tin. The cake can then be sliced, if in a square tin then obviously it is easy to cut into squares. Makes nine slices/squares.
This will keep for up to 3 days in an airtight tin - after that it starts to go a bit mouldy as it lacks the fat which would keep it a bit longer. I found it rather a dry sponge in the areas where I missed pouring the orange syrup but the sections which I had soaked were lovely and moist. So this cake will really benefit from a good soak as per recipe.
It also came up rather nicely so next time I may double up on this mixture and make two 8" sponges and sandwich together with butter cream.