Lemon and Lime Cake

Today I was feeling slightly tired as I had spent the previous day partying hard in Sheffield for the wedding of two good friends I had known since school. I therefore decided to make something that was quite light and also refreshing bearing in mind how dehydrated I was from consuming champagne the previous day.

The soundtrack for the cooking of the lemon and lime cake was the Who's 1973 double album Quadrophenia, a record that was often on my cassette player during some of the most memorable moments I had shared at school with the two friends who had just married.

I started by greasing a 25cm wide and 10cm deep baking tin with margarine and a dusting of plain flour in order to prevent the cake from sticking to it. I then grated the zest of a lemon into a bowl and mixed it with a tablespoon of vanilla extract, 8 ounces of caster sugar and 8 ounces of margarine.

After I had mixed these ingredients together so that the sugar disappeared into the margarine I beat four eggs together in a separate bowl and then added a quarter of egg mixture to the bowl of ingredients. I then measured out 8 ounces of self-raising flour and added a quarter of the flour to the bowl. I mixed the eggs and flour thoroughly into the other ingredients. I then repeated this process with the remainder of the eggs and the flour until they were completely integrated into the other ingredients.

The Sponge Mixture prior to cooking, it's pretty runny as this is a light cake. 

After this I poured the mixture into the baking tin and baked it in the oven at 160 degrees in my fanned oven (or 180 degrees if you have a regular oven) for around fifty-five minutes. I knew the cake was ready as when I put a skewer through it none of the mixture was attached to it.

I left the cake to cool down for an hour or so and then cut it in half width ways. I spread half a jar of lime curd in the centre of the bottom half of the cake and then placed top half of the cake onto the bottom half to form a sandwich. I finished the cake by sprinkling a dusting of icing sugar on the top it.

The cake lived up to expectations when I had a piece as its light sponge and the lime curd were the perfect refresher after the excitement of the previous day.  

Dusted with icing sugar and ready to eat. 

The Lime Curd in the middle of the cake.