Comfort Food

On Friday it was the sewing room which was strangely comforting, today it is my poppyseed and lemon cake. What is it about a cake baked in a loaf tin which is so pleasing? It must be the memories it evokes of childhood when Mums stayed at home and there was always something freshly baked sitting on the kitchen bench when we arrived home from school. Biscuits, cupcakes or a stack of fresh pikelets didn't last long when four hungry mouths came through the door at the end of the school day. When a cake was needed for a cake stall, or someone was coming for afternoon tea, the loaf cake was a great standby and could be varied by simply changing a few ingredients.
I felt the need to bake a cake in a loaf tin (I have no idea why) and had recently cut out a recipe for a poppyseed and lemon cake by David Herbert who writes every week for The Australian which I thought would do nicely. The recipe called for 250 grams of butter, four eggs, half a bucket of flour and sugar etc, and would have fed half the city as well as putting 10 kilos on my hips. So after some quick modifications my more modest cake was produced. I always think it is best to make small cakes, that way the guilt lasts only a few days compared to all week if you have to eat your way through a huge cake. Much better to get all that guilt over and done with.