With Valentine's Day falling this weekend I thought it worth sharing a suitable recipe this week. I first shared this recipe for Valentine's Day 2013 but as I have gained so many new followers since then I'm sure there is no harm in sharing it again!
You will need to set aside a couple of hours to make this cake, although it isn't really all that labour intensive. A lot of the time is taken up with the cake baking in the oven so you can go ahead and do something else.
If you don't think you have the time to make a secret heart cake then you could also just make a simple Lemon Loaf using the recipe below. I know any of the men in my life would be more than happy with a plain old Lemon Loaf!
You need to make double the amount of mix that you would make for your usual loaf cake recipe, so if you are wanting to make just the one Lemon Loaf rather than the heart cake, then simply half the amounts below.
One final point to remember, is that to make this strictly gluten free then please replace the oat milk with any other dairy free milk alternative (rice, soya, oat, almond). Our boys can eat oats OK and I like to use oat milk in cooking as it doesn't have a strong flavour. Rice would probably be the next best alternative as it also has very little flavour, but it's not recommended for under 5s.
Anyway, the cake...
You will need:
8oz dairy free margarine
10oz sugar
2 eggs
1 cup of oat milk (or other dairy free milk)
16oz Doves Farm Gluten Free Self Raising Flour
rind of a lemon
pink food colouring
for the topping:
juice of the lemon
3-4 tbsp sugar
you will also need a lined loaf tin and a heart shaped cutter.
Part One
~Beat the margarine and sugar well in a mixer, or with a hand held mixer, until it looks light and fluffy.
~ Meanwhile beat the eggs & the milk together then mix the flour & the lemon rind together.
~Add a little of the egg mix to the butter/sugar mix, beat well and then add a little of the flour mix, beating well again.
~Keep alternating a little of each of the two mixes until everything is mixed together.
~Take about half of the finished mix and add to another bowl.
~You now have two equal bowls of lemon loaf mix.
~To one of these bowls add the pink food colouring and mix well.
~ Pour your pink mix into your lined loaf tin and bake at about 190C for around an hour. You might want to check it after about 50 minutes though, depending on your oven. When it's ready, allow to cool on a wire rack for about half an hour or so.
Part Two
~Once your pink mix is cooled enough to handle, slice it up as though you were going to serve it.
~Take your heart shaped cutter and cut a heart out of the middle of each slice.
~Re-line your loaf tin and add a small layer of the plain coloured loaf mix to the bottom.
~One by one, add the hearts, standing upright on their points, in a line until the tin is full.
~Use the rest of your plain mix and fill in the gaps down the side of the tin and then cover the top too.
~Put back in the oven, this time for about 30-40 minutes. It will be nice and golden on the top and a skewer stuck in the side (not in the middle because remember the middle bit is already cooked!) will come out clean.
~When you take the cake out of the oven, mix together the topping ingredients and drizzle over the top of the warm cake.
~Cool down again on a wire rack.
~Best served with a nice cup of tea and your true love!
