MY MOTHER-IN-LAW'S MADEIRA CAKE

MY MOTHER-IN-LAW'S MADEIRA CAKE

I don't know if I ever ate Madeira cake as a child, but just the sight of this golden-yellow loaf with its long crack down the middle makes me feel satisfactorily nostalgic. This recipe, given to me by my mother-in-law Carrie, is the best of any version I've tried. It's just one of those plain cakes you think you can't see the point of, until you start slicing and eating it.
- Nigella Lawson

Ingredients

240 gram(s) unsalted butter (softened)
200 gram(s) caster sugar (plus extra for sprinkling)
1 unwaxed lemon (zest & juice)
3 large eggs
210 gram(s) self-raising flour
90 gram(s) plain flour

Method

Preheat the oven to 170ºC/gas mark 3.
Cream the butter and sugar, and add the lemon zest.
Add the eggs one at a time with a tablespoon of the flour for each.
Then gently mix in the rest of the flour and, finally, the lemon juice.
Sprinkle with caster sugar (about 2 tablespoons should do it) 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 cool in the tin before turning out.