Happy Summer Solstice!

Now, what I really wanted to do was stay up all night in order to arrive here at sunrise. Now the sun currently rises around 4:30 am here in Wales, and you will remember our four children (including two under age three). Plus it's like a 3 to 4 hour drive from here. Next year maybe.

Instead we are hanging around the house and relaxing. I have done some solstice-y things, though.

I finished a second batch of elderflower cordial (this time it was a double batch) and made a couple of pitchers up for the family. (That pitcher is half full not half empty by the way.)

The Artist and I also made a cake. I found the recipe on the back of a bag of Dove's Farm Gluten and Wheat Free White Self-Raising Flour Blend. I'll work on translating the recipe back into American (sorry sis!). I did replace the eggs with 2 tablespoons corn flour (aka corn starch) and 2 tablespoons water. But then I made 2 cakes and put lemon curd and clotted cream in the middle of them. Kind of defeated the purpose of an egg and dairy free cake. (I ended up using goat butter in it, too since that was all we had in the house. But margarine would be a simple substitute.)

So, with that disclaimer, here is the recipe:

Lemon and Poppy Seed Sponge

Ingredients:

10 ounces Self Raising Flour

8 ounces Butter

10 ounces sugar

4 eggs (or 8 tbsp water and 8 tbsp corn flour/corn starch)

6 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp grated lemon rind

2 tbsp poppy seeds

icing sugar (aka powdered sugar)

lemon curd

clotted cream

Mix dry ingredients in one bowl and wet in another. Mix dry with wet and put into 2 greased and floured circular pans. Bake at 190 degrees Celsius or 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 - 45 minutes.

When cool, pop the cakes out of the pans and put them into the refrigerator. When completely cool, spread lemon curd and then clotted cream on top of one of them and place the other one on top of it. Sprinkle with icing/ powdered sugar.

Now I'm off as we are fixing to go either to the beach or some ancient burial site. Depends on what the rest of the family wants to do.

Oh, and Happy Father's Day!