Sweet sweet Friday: Lemon Cake

Part of the joy of cooking is found in the planning and anticipation, but sometimes life gets in the way. Like on Tuesday night, when I had to whip up an emergency birthday cake between getting home from work, getting the Small Girl's dinner, putting her to bed, putting on two loads of washing and getting out the door again less than 90 minutes later.
Did I panic? No (well, ok, I panicked a tiny bit). But then I remembered Julie's Aunty Ade's Lemon Cake. It was done in a flash, even with the Small Girl "helping". Actually, she's getting quite good at it, and she doesn't even want to lick the spoon. Perhaps I could start her on doing the dishes next...

Quick Lemon Cake

This needs a food processor, because "Not Quite So Quick Cake" doesn't have the same ring to it. I've never met Julie's Aunty Ade,but she's obviously a clever woman.

2 lemons

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

2 eggs

3/4 cup canola oil

pinch of salt

1 cup yoghurt

3Tbsp lemon juice

2 cups self-raising flour

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line a 24cm cake tin (it will cook even faster in a ring tin, but a springform tin will lessen the anxiety when it comes to turning it out).

Peel the zest from the lemons with a potato peeler and put in the processor with the sugar. Whizz for about a minute, until the lemon peel is pulverised. Stop the machine and add the eggs, oil and salt. Whizz again until smooth. Add the yoghurt, lemon juice and flour and pulse until smooth.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 35-40 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes then turn out of the tin. Then, either ice when cold, or serve with a dollop of Greek yoghurt. Or, wrap the tin in a teatowel, throw in the car and drive across town. Stop at supermarket for candles. Arrive, pretending to be unhurried, super-organised working mother. Then realise your friends know you better than that!

Have a sweet, sweet Friday everyone. I'm going to spend it recovering from my first experience of cooking on live TV, which you can see here. (Note to self: horizontal stripes = bad idea!)