This recipe for Courgette, Thyme and Lemon Drizzle Cake seems at least a little bit healthy with the addition of the courgettes (you're never too old for hidden vegetables!). It goes as follows...
Preheat your oven to 180C. Line a 2lb loaf tin with baking parchment.
Grate 200g of courgette. Give the grated courgette a firm squeeze over your sink to reduce excess water.
Put 180g soft unsalted butter and 160g caster sugar into a bowl and whisk together with the zest of one lemon until light, pale and fluffy. This may take a few minutes. Whisk in 3 eggs, one at a time, until well incorporated.
Sift in 200g self-raising
flour and a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. Tip in the courgettes, 80g ground almonds, 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, a pinch of salt and 5 tablespoons of milk. Gently fold everything together, but don't overmix as this will make the cake dry and rubbery. Stop as soon as you stop seeing any dry parts in the mix.
Scrape
the mix into your loaf tin and level it with the back of a spoon. Bake for 45 minutes or until a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cover loosely with foil if it looks like burning on the top before the centre is cooked. Leave to cool in the tin.
While the cake is still warm, mix 2 tablespoons of caster sugar
with the zest of one lemon and the juice of 2 lemons. Lightly pierce the top of the cake all over with a skewer and spoon the juice across the top of the cake. Serve once cooled.
This cake tasted even better when I finally sat down sitting down with a nice cup of tea putting all my IT woes behind me, and I hope that, if you
decide to bake it, you'll enjoy it as much as I did!
