What better to do than bake a cake on a gloomy Monday morning ( unless you don’t enjoy baking! ) I often bake on a Monday whilst catching up on the wash load!! Anyway who doesn’t like a treat on a Monday?! I think it should be compulsory! 

I love to bake with unusual flavour combinations and this one fits the bill perfectly. It’s not so much unusual because lemon & thyme are the perfect match but it’s unusual in a cake! Although the thyme is very subtle, it’s more lemon drizzle, and let’s face it who doesn’t like lemon drizzle! And this looks very pretty! I remembered I had this recipe written in one of my notebooks so off I set.

The one tip I would give is to ensure you butter the bundt tin well, even though mine is non stick I still give it a good prep with butter using my pastry brush. I’ve seen many disasters on Instagram!!! 

It’s very easy as are most of my bakes, I’ve mentioned before I’m no great baker but I’m great at making a mess, chocolate and icing sugar being the biggest culprits! As soon as I see sift icing sugar that’s it, clouds of it fly around my kitchen and a film of white dust settles!!!! I guess that’s the down side of a black high gloss kitchen! 

You will need: a bundt tin 24cm greased with butter. 

Preheat oven to gas 3/ 160/ fan 140 

• 350g caster sugar
• 175g softened butter
• 2 large lemons finely grated ( zest )
• 3 large eggs
• 350g plain flour
• 200g natural yogurt
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp fresh thyme leaves, roughly chopped

For the icing:

• 175g icing sugar
• 1 tbsp lemon freshly squeezed
• 2 tbsp boiling water
• 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

Method:

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy, about 5 mins. Add the lemon zest, then beat in the eggs one at a time adding a tablespoon of the flour after each egg.

Next spoon half the yogurt into the mixture, sift the baking powder and a pinch of salt and half the flour and fold this together. Repeat with the remaining yogurt and flour along with the thyme.

Spoon the mixture into your prepared tin, then bake for 50-55 minutes until risen and golden brown and a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 mins then turn out onto a cooling rack over a large baking sheet.( to catch the drips ) 

For the icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl, add the lemon juice and hot water, mix until smooth. While the cake is still slightly warm spoon over icing. Sprinkle with the thyme leaves and leave to set. 

It also makes a nice easy dessert, just add yogurt, berries and lemon syrup or honey works too.

Put the kettle on and enjoy x