Nigella's cakes

I tried Nigella's Soot's Flapjack this week as I need to find a 'regular' flapjack recipe (Rachel Allen's has too many bits and seeds in for L's liking!) and my sister swears by this one. It came out okay...but too dry - basically just crumbled into nothing!!! We think it might be because I used porridge oats instead of rolled oats and they sucked up too much of the liquid. So I'll buy some more this week and give it another go.

Meanwhile, the Madeira cake came out ace.



240g softened unsalted butter
200g caster sugar, plus an extra 2 tbspn for sprinkling
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
3 large eggs
210g self-raising flour
90g plain flour

2lb loaf tin

Preheat the oven to 170C (I used 160ish for my fan oven)/gas 3.

Cream the butter and sugar, and add the lemon zest. Add the eggs one at a time with a tbspn of flour with each. Then gently mix in the rest of the flour and finally, the lemon juice. Sprinkle with caster sugar as it goes into the oven, and bake for 1 hour or until a cake-tester comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack and let it cool in the tin before turning out.