Air Fryer Lemon Drizzle Cake with Kate Hardy

 

In The Body at Rookery Barn, Francesca makes amazing cakes - and Colin can’t resist her lemon cake! This is one of my own favourites; when my children were small, I’d make this for school fundraisers. (The original recipe uses doubles the quantity; in that case, use a 2lb loaf tin and cook at 180C in a preheated oven for about 45 minutes.)

This is the version I tend to make at the moment as both children have left home and this is a nice size to stop two people being very greedy… and also because we bought an air fryer when our son left home, and I wanted to prove that you can bake cakes and cookies in an air fryer :)

(Note for US readers: to make plain (all-purpose) flour into self-raising, add 1 tsp baking powder per 100g of flour.)

Air fryer lemon drizzle cake

Ingredients: 

4 oz (113g) caster sugar

4 oz (113g) butter/marge

4 oz (113g) self-raising flour

2 eggs

1 lemon

1 dessert spoon of granulated sugar

Method:

1. Line a 1lb (500g) loaf tin.

2. Place butter and caster sugar into a bowl, grate the lemon rind over it, and cream together.

3. Add half the flour and one egg, and mix.

4. Add the rest of the flour and the other egg, and mix. 

5. Put the mixture in the tin, add a tinfoil ‘sling’ (so you can get it out of the air fryer easily at the end) and cook on BAKE 150C for 35 mins. (You need a lower temperature and a longer time in the air fryer to make sure the bottom cooks but the top isn’t too crunchy.) Test with a wooden skewer at 30 mins; if it comes out clean, it’s done, but if there’s still mixture clinging to the skewer give it another couple of minutes.

6. Juice the lemon and add the granulated sugar; microwave for about 20 seconds so the sugar melts (and it’ll sink more deeply into the cake).

7. Prick the surface of the cake with a cocktail stick and spoon over the sugar syrup.

8. Let the cake cool in the tin; enjoy!  

About the Author

Kate Hardy lives in Norwich with her husband, two grown-up children, two spaniels and too many books to count. 

She’s won three Romantic Novelists’ Association awards for her romantic fiction – and is thoroughly enjoying her new life of crime! When she’s not writing or researching, she’ll be out at a gig or the theatre, at ballet class, doing cross-stitch, taking photographs of the sunrise while persuading the spaniels to stay still for one second, fossicking around on a beach or in archives, or exploring ancient buildings. 

She loves learning new things, which is why you’ll always discover something different in a Kate Hardy book…

Kate Hardy on the web:

Website        Facebook     Twitter       Instagram         Tiktok

Storm Publishing.        BookBub

The Body at Rookery Barn: A totally gripping cozy mystery (A Georgina Drake Mystery Book 1)

 

Outside, Rookery Barn glows in the mid-morning sunshine while fat bees flit lazily between the forget-me-nots. Inside, a body lies dead…

Widowed Georgina Drake has no regrets about moving to beautiful, sleepy Little Wenborough in rural Norfolk. Until she opens the door to her rental property and finds the dead body of her latest guest, irritable university professor Roland Garnett. And on top of that she’s suddenly hearing a woman’s voice through her hearing aids.

Completely shaken by the discovery, Georgina can hardly believe it when the police conclude that Professor Garnett was poisoned, with a dinner delivered by Georgina herself. Is she about to be accused of murder? Georgina needs to pull herself together, try to ignore the distracting voice, and clear her name!

Asking around, it seems Roland Garnett offended half the village during his three-week stay and made unwelcome advances to the rest. But who was provoked enough to poison him? Georgina’s best lead is the deadly oleander found in Roland’s system. Her gardener, Young Tom, had access to the plant, but before she can talk to him Tom becomes the killer’s next victim.

As the crimes mount up, so do the clues, but does Georgina have what it takes to follow them to their conclusion? Even when her amateur sleuthing puts her next in the killer’s sights…?

An addictive and completely gripping cosy crime novel. Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, Faith Martin and Midsomer Murders.

Buy on:

Amazon Kindle

Amazon Aust

Amazon UK