Guardian Girl

Yum, yum, yum. This was another very successful dish – Dan Lepard’s yoghurt and stone fruit cake. He was telling the truth when he said it was easy, and when he said it’d knock your socks off.

My only complaint is that you have to leave it in the oven for a perilously long time while you contemplate the tub of ice cream you bought to accompany it, and by the time the cake’s ready the ice cream has gone somewhere else. To the afterlife. All the ice cream.

I didn’t have a round cake tin so I used my ubiquitous rectangular one instead, which has done no harm to the cake other than make it cook quicker – the recipe said to leave it in for about an hour but mine was done to perfection after 45 minutes or so, with fluffy undercake and a sugary, browned crust on the top.

The lemon zest, yoghurt and semolina combine to make the tastiest thing ever, reminding me of the ‘moist lemon cake’ I requested from my ma when I had glandular fever aged 15 or so, and got. Sometimes things you had when you were very poorly remind you of feeling horrible, sometimes they remind you of love, and the latter is true of lemon cake for me.

Needless to say I got through a fair portion of it for my dinner and my colleagues are enjoying sharing the rest today.

I packed in a punnet of peaches, one of nectarines and two plums. I did big-bit chopping.

I’d thought it looked like quite a healthy recipe and was enjoying my virtuous feelings as I bought fat-free yoghurt. Then I got home and realised there was 175g of butter in it, which luckily I had in the fridge. I also forgot to buy more plain flour but replacing it with the strong white stuff worked perfectly well.

Stone fruit yoghurt cake

A big square omelette

It’s not, but it does look like one doesn’t it. I’m not afraid to admit that.

Conclusions:

• Butter mountain.
• Delicious mountain.
• Why have I started describing things as ‘virtuous’ because they’re fat free? This is terrible! I haven’t even been watching Philadelphia ads. I need to check myself.