Another of those recipes that arrived by mail from my yahoo groups - I printed it off ages back but didnt get around to trying it. Eventually I DID try it out (or this post could never have been, could it?) but it's been a few weeks since that event as well.
It's a nice lemony cake, but I dont really understand why it needed the poppyseeds. I've never used poppy seeds in a cake before and I'm not sure I will again, because there wasnt any value addition to the end product, in my opinion.
(Do I sound like an economist - or something like - or what! Mr P Ganesh, if ever you read this, you'll know that one of your ex-economics students has managed to remember a vaguely economical(!) phrase. Never think your efforts were entirely in vain!)
Basically I felt the poppy seeds gave the cake a gritty sort of texture when eating it, but that's only my opinion. Our friends decimated it quite quickly and even took some home - oh yeah, it's a large cake! And I didnt use a tube bundt pan because I dont have one. I used a large rectangular daisy-mould baking pan that I got along with my sunflower pan. Oddly enough, this cake, like the sunflower-shaped sponge, is a lemony one as well!
Baking artists like Archana of Spicyana would certainly have made better use of the daisies by colouring them with icing and making the cake look stunning... but I dont have the expertise (or the urge to learn, much as I'd like all the admiration and oohing and aahing from readers!), so I just poured the lemon glaze on top and decided that was enough.
One last thing - I dont know why it's called Tucson lemon poppyseed cake, unless it originated in Tucson or something.
Recipe for: Tucson lemon poppyseed cake
Ingredients:
2-1/2 cups flour
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup margarine or butter, softened
3 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup poppy seeds
2 tbsp grated lemon peel
4 tbsp lemon juice
For the lemon glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tbsp grated lemon peel
1/4 cup lemon juice
Mix all ingredients and beat for 5 minutes. (The original recipe said to use 1/4 cup margarine but I omitted it. This is a simple glaze!)
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and flour a 10" baking pan.
2. Beat sugar and margarine until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time.
3. Sift together the flour and baking soda. Beat into sugar mixture alternately with buttermilk until well blended.
4. Stir in the poppyseeds, lemon peel and lemon juice. Spread in cake pan.
5. Bake for 45 minutes or until cake tests done.
6. Immediately poke holes in the cake with a skewer. Pour 2/3 of the lemon glaze over the top and let the cake cool for 20 minutes in the pan.
7. Remove the cake from the pan and pour over the remaining icing on top.
