The War Time Cake

I made this cake for my father-in-law who is in hospital at the moment. As I was putting it into the cake tin, my middle daughter said she thought it looked like an old fashioned war time cake! Well there you go, I'm sure he's going to love it, after all, he is 80!!! I would have put cherries inside the cake, had I any left, but when I got to the cupboard (thinking I had a full tub of cherries) I found only 8 sitting in the puddle of gooey at the bottom of the tub! Somebody (only mentioning my oldest daughter's name here!) had picked and picked and picked at them until only 8 remained...she's for the high jump when she gets in!!!!

Anyhoo I digress...

It's just my ordinary cake mixture, dressed up to suit is Nibbs, but I can adapt it for any cake I want..chocoalte with chocoalte icing and chocoalte curls, coffee with coffee icing and walnuts, lemon with lemon curd, cardommon the list is endless and I've never had it fail on me... go on try it, let me know how you get on!

1 3/4 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
Here you have a choice…
2 teaspoons ground cardamom
OR 2 teaspoons cinnamon
OR 2 teaspoons vanilla
OR 2 heaped teaspoons of cocoa powder
OR 2 teaspoons of coffee granules dissolved in 2 teaspoons of hot water
OR grated zest and juice of ½ lemon
1/2 cup softened butter
1 egg
3/4 cup milk

Heat oven to 180c fan.
Grease and flour a 23cm round cake tin.
Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Add butter, egg, and milk and stir to a smooth batter.
Pour batter into tin, smoothing the surface with a spatula.
Bake in the lower half of the oven for approx 30 minutes.
Let cool before removing from tin.
Decorate the top to suit the flavour of the cake. I have made all the variations with toppings to match.

The lemon flavoured one is great cut in half and sandwiched together with lemon curd, dusted with icing sugar and sprinkled with lemon zest!!

The Chocolate one is great with melted chocoalte poured over the top and chocolate curls added just before set.

The Coffee flavoured one is great with thick coffee flavoured icing and decorated with walnut halves.

This cake has a lovely light texture and will keep in an air tight container for a week, if you manage to hide it in a safe place away from the cake-a-holics in your house!!