Description
This easy loaf cake highlights the wonderful herby fragrance of fresh thyme.
Ingredients
Scale
- 125 g butter
- 75 g caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 175 g self-raising flour
- 4 tablespoons of milk
- 1 lemon
- Approximately ten sprigs of fresh thyme (each about 5 cm long) plus a few additional sprigs to decorate, if required.
- 100 g icing sugar
Instructions
- Set your oven to 180 degrees centigrade or Gas Mark 4.
- Grease a 450 g loaf tin and line the bottom with baking parchment or use a paper loaf tin liner.
- Cream the butter with the sugar. (I usually soften the butter for about 30 seconds in the microwave first as it makes it much easier!)
- Gradually add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture. If it looks as if it is going to curdle, add some of the self-raising flour.
- Once the eggs have been incorporated add the rest of the self-raising flour.
- Add the milk and the grated zest of your lemon.
- Remove the leaves from your sprigs of thyme and chop finely. Put half of the chopped leaves (about 2 teaspoons) into the cake mixture. The other half should be reserved for use in the drizzle.
- Spoon the cake mixture into your prepared loaf tin.
- Put the tin in the oven and bake for 45 minutes.
- While the cake is baking, put the juice from your lemon in a small bowl and add the reserved half of the chopped thyme leaves. Heat in the microwave for 1 minute. The idea is to heat the juice so that the thyme releases its fragrance. (If you don’t have a microwave, you can heat the juice in a saucepan over a low heat on the stove.) Allow the juice containing the chopped thyme leaves to cool slightly. Then combine it with 100 g of icing sugar to form a thick syrup.
- Remove the cake from the oven and immediately pour the syrup over the top.
- Leave the cake in the tin to cool completely before removing. If you try and take it out while it is still warm it may fall apart as it will be very moist due to the syrup.
- You can decorate the cake with a few further sprigs of thyme.
Keywords: thyme, loaf cake, thyme cake, culinary herbs