TGIF! Lemon sour-cream syrup cake

I was reading an online article this morning entitled “Are your colleagues making you fat?” A mere three hours after reading said article, I was slapping down a Lemon Sour-Cream Syrup cake on the staff-room table.

I must say that we like our treats in our office and we are lucky enough to havea colleague who is a professional baker of cakes when she is not working with us.This means that we are regularly provided with amazing cup-cakes, macarons, cookies and cake-pops. It’s a given that if something edible is placed on the staff-room table that it’s a) first in, best dressed and b) it will get finished, oh yes, it will.

This working week has been long, difficult one for everyone and I thought it would be nice to finish on a high note so last night I baked. Baking at night takes on a very different quality to baking in the day. The kitchen is cooler in the evenings, cold even when it is winter, and you usually have it to yourself. The light is different – for me an orange glow bounces off the vintage wall-paper and gives the tiny room a cocoon-like feel. It’s so quiet that you can hear the gas roaring as you heat up the oven. I got flour all over my pyjamas but I was okay with that. It’s all part of the night-time baking fun.

The cake, fresh from the oven, looking a bit orange under the kitchen lights.

I like this Lemon Sour-Cream Syrup cake because it is a great ‘stand-by’ cake. The ingredients are basic and easily available; it’s quick (just over an hour); plus it is a tasty, traditional tea-time kind of cake that will go down well with hungry families or colleagues alike. It’s sweet and tangy, moist and sticky. The lemons are candied in the syrup and placed on top. I love it.

Making the syrup: lemons, sugar and water all cooked up together.

I use this recipe from taste.com.au , have used it many, many, times in fact, and I make no changes to it except, in this instance, to double the quantities, because the family would be most put out if I made cake for my work-mates but not for them, so there were actually two cakes in the end rather than the one that you are seeing.

TGIF!

On the staff-room table for Friday's morning tea.