So I thought in this post I would be providing a little review of a place called "Distrikt" in Leeds city centre, however, I forgot that my mum was coming over today which meant an excuse to bake a little treat!
For those reading who might know my mum, she likes to provide vast amounts of delicious Indonesian cusine, which she kindly brought for me and Steve for a Sunday get together so the least I could do is do something summery & delicious for dessert.
The warm weather (and the inevitably rich & filling offerings my mum will be bringing) left me wanting to cook something refreshing, fruity, not too calorific (ha!) and based on what we already had at home.
I decided on a lemon drizzle cake after drooling over the recipe in the Green and Black's for a Lemon Drizzle cake with sunken dark chocolate chunks, but I wanted to make it a little more seasonal by using fresh cherries and white chocolate chunks.
I substituted the 75g dark chocolate with 75g white chocolate and (approx) 150g fresh pitted cherries, along with the zest of 2 lemons instead of 1 for extra zing! It was super delish and the recipe is as follows:
Summer Drizzle Cake
125g Unsalted butter - softened
125g Caster sugar
2 large eggs
150g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
Rind of 2 lemons
1 tbsp milk
75g chopped white chocolate
(Approx) 150g pitted cherries
Lemon Drizzle
50g golden granulated sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease and line a loaf tin (or lightly grease a silicone loaf tin as I used)
Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the eggs one by on, beating well in between.
Sift together the flour and baking powder and beat into the mix until just incorporated.
Fold in the grated zest and chocolate. Lightly coat the cherries in a tbsp flour before folding into the mix.
Spoon the mix into the prepared tin, and smooth flat. Bake for approx 40 mins (or until the top springs back when lightly pressed).
Take the cake out of the oven, make the drizzle by stirring together the lemon juice and sugar before pouring over the hot cake. You can make little holes in the top of the cake if the syrup remains on the surface.
Leave in the tin for 10-15 mins more, then leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
This was uber yummy, however the majority of it was demolished by the 4 of us during the day, but I imagine this would be a cake which would get better over the course of a few days. The drizzle was tangy & refreshing, whilst the white chocolate chunks provided a contrasting vanillary smoothness to work with the juicy burst of the cherries. I would have preferred the icing drizzle to have set into a crispy, crunchy crust around the cake, which may have happened if we gave it time to cool properly!
So now I feel truely podged out, the various curries, spring rolls, rice, noodles, creme caramel and cake have sent my calorie count flying out the door, but oh well, it was bloody tasty and there's always gym tomorrow!
