Lemon syrup loaf cake

I feel like I have been away from blogging for a while. An Indian takeaway and a picnic have been on the agenda this weekend. A break in the rain provided a perfect day at a music festival yesterday with the children. A very civilised one day fesival, none of this camping and muddy fields thank you very much. I'm way too old for that. Anyway it's back to normal today, pouring with rain.  I have baked my favourite Lemon Cake to take up to school for a leaving party for one of the teachers. It's a recipe from Nigella Lawsons  "How to be a domestic Goddess'.


Ingredients
125g softened butter
175g caster sugar
2 large eggs
zest of 1 lemon (preferably unwaxed)
175g self-raising flour
4 tbsp milk

for the syrup:
juice of the lemon
75g icing sugar

Method
Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin (23x13x7cm) with baking parchment - this is a very moist and sticky cake. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4.
Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy and then add the eggs and then lemon zest, beating them in well. Add the flour and fold in gently but thoroughly until well mixed. Add the 4 tbsp milk and mix well.  Transfer the mixture into the tin and smooth the surface. Place in the oven.

While the cake is cooking, make the syrup. Place the lemon juice and icing sugar into a small pan and heat gently until the sugar dissolves.
When the cake is cooked (45 minutes or so until golden and risen in the middle with a cake tester/skewer coming out clean ) stab the cake repeatedly, all over the surface and right down into the cake. Carefully pour the syrup mixture over the cake, trying to make sure that some is absorbed in the middle of the cake, rather than just running down to the edges of the tin. Leave in the tin until completely cold, then carefully remove and slice.