I am definitely not a baker of cakes. I don't like the mess. I don't even really particularly have a sweet tooth - give me a handful of dates or a spoonful of peanut butter, or at a stretch, jam on Vitaweats, or a hot cacao and honey. I'm so not a baker of cakes that my mother always makes cakes for birthdays.
But with one eye on the budget, less work than usual, and a hungry husband who is hating is job, I thought baking a cake or two would cheer him up and stop me buying expensive snacks for his morning tea. Banana cake and anzac biscuits are usually the cheap and easy sweets to make for lunches, but waiting for pay day meant I didn't even have black bananas languishing in the fruit bowl.
What did I have? Lemons. Oh man, I have an absolute abundance of lemons. If lemons were gold.... And fennel seeds. A whole gherkin jar full. Has anyone made a lemon and fennel seed cake? Yep, it's a thing - google tells me it is. But I didn't have semolina, or expensive almond meal. The cakes I were seeing looked moist and delicious but I needed moist and cheap.
What about, then, a lemon and fennel yoghurt cake?
And it worked. I mean, it's just a lemon yoghurt cake with fennel, right? Chuck a tablespoon of seeds in there and voila! I could have ground half of them and put a few extra in, which I will next time. And I read somewhere toasting them was a thing, so maybe I'd try that.
I also doubled the lemon zest - and next time I'd add more because I like it zesty.
I added probably another half to three quarters cup of yoghurt because I used less oil (I used this recipe) and I think it hit the moisture meter pretty nicely - it lasted a few days without getting stale.
I also made a makeshift frosting - half a tub of cream cheese, some lemon juice and grated rind, a few tablespoons of yoghurt, and some xanthan gum to thicken and set it a bit better. It was absolutely delish.
Rating? Ten out of ten lemons.
🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋
And it wasn't just me saying that - we had guests over that were equally impressed, having never thought fennel seeds in a cake could possibly be a thing. Turns out they absolutely are!
This week I have vowed off cake, because Hips said 'no'. But next week? Yeah I'll be doing this one again.
**NB - of course you can make this vegan - more coconut yoghurt or coconut cream, some eggless replacer, vegan marj - too easy!
With Love,
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