The time has come for the fire to be lit in the daylight hours rather than at dusk. I use the term “daylight” loosely as “daygrey” would be more pertinent, both in luminance and mood. This is cake weather, where cake and coffee can be relied upon to provide toothsome warmth and comfort whilst serving to stem the onrushing grey tide that mentally announces winter’s arrival. Cake has come into my life twice and decamped but once. Memories of childhood lead me to the neologism of cakehood as, in those years, it was the promise of cake that defined landmark occasions. Birthdays, Christmases, Easters, successes and comfort for failures were all deemed cakeworthy. There were other landmark occasions, which had cake as the key player, that were equally memorable but less joyful such as my first visit to the relatively primitive surgery of a dentist of that era. Cake took its leave of me and my sugar beaten teeth, as I took my leave of school. The world of the early 60’s had much, much more to offer than cake to an adolescent whose hungers were now firmly situated at a point slightly lower than his stomach and not far above the gutter. Rumours and unclear Chinese whispers suggested to the young man, whose life to this point had been spent in single sex boarding schools, that henceforth sugar and spice and all things nice could be found far beyond Madeira and Battenberg and in new and extravagant packaging and so it proved to be. We now move on from those heady, carefree and cakefree days to the next Platonic relationship with cake. Now, having partaken of the sugar and spice, I had fathered children and Jenny and I guided those children through their cakehood, marking landmark occasions in the way that we remembered but with better dentistry. Yet it would take many more years before cake and I were reunited. That time is now and, in the second age of cake, I am again happily lost in the sugary bosom of gateau once again.
This is a cake that gives drizzle a good name.
I’ll print the photo out then bake the cake, so I can have my cake and eat it. Delicious prose and poetry, as always 🙂
poetry? Photography! I think my brain needs sugar.
🙂
It’s such a good recipe….well worth making…and eating:)
When I gave up sugar in tea and coffee, around age 17, my taste buds changed and I moved towards savoury things. I haven’t had the second coming of cake age. I’d definitely like to taste a teaspoonful of your beautiful cake, but really I’d really prefer a piece of cheese – squeak, squeak 😉
That’s strange MD. At age 70 I’ve given up sugar in tea and coffee and yet have entered the second cake age….I’m also very keen on cheese…this might be a sign of vanillity:)
Ha ha – I think your cake age might be relative to topping up the sugar you no longer get from tea and coffee 🙂
I think you’re right….I’ve never really craved sweet things since the end of my first cakehood and I still prefer savoury tastes…but I can happily force down some sexy cake in a moment of passion:)
ROFL 🙂
You can really measure you life from cakehood to cakehood. My sugar tastes and preferences have definitely changed with age and geography, but this is the kind of gateau I have always enjoyed.
Glad to hear we reading from the same page:)
Lovely post, cake and photo’s. I just love that loaf pan, so beautiful.
Many thanks…glad you liked it:)
Cakes from a loaf pan are my favorites. Easily put together, easily eaten! I do believe it is time for my second age of cake to begin. Thanks for the jump-start.
My pleasure:)
Perfect. Simply, perfect.
I was lucky to find such a good recipe….
What a beautiful cake. I hate that the light is waning. Photos look so much more beautiful in natural light. I love your table and dishes.
This is the season of the tripod and making the most of what little light there is….
Always a cracking good read my friend… And don’t get me started on your photos. I would imagine you hear enough good things about those with out me jumping on board 🙂
You’re a good person…thanks for the visit:)
A memorable weaving of those dark days of dentistry with the golden aura that surrounds such a creation as Lemon Drizzle Cake. Two things at opposite ends of life’s pleasure spectrum! Beautiful writing as always.
Many thanks…trying to forget the dark days of dentistry( very nice alliteration) 🙂
Soooo gorgeous! Wish I had me a slice right now! 🙂
Get baking, Serena:)
I consider myself more of a cook then a baker, but when I get inspired, the oven definitely gets turned on!
I wish I was much better at baking…but I wish I was much better at loads of things….as Winston Churchill said “Just KBO” translated as “keep buggering on”:)
I tasted my first birthday cake when i was 17! So began my love affair(s) a bit later than most. hee hee. This looks quite delicious and the pan it sets it like a treasure possession.
Nicely phrased…many thanks, late starter:)
Sugar: I so would love to meet Mad – we oft think the same but he ‘puts’ it better!! ! Have never had a ‘cake age’ 🙂 !! And Roger: be happy with the ‘safe’ drizzling’ days . . . I can assure you that daily wild thunderstorms for more than a fortnight are no fun at all especially when they wipe out your phone and computer exchange systems!! How on earth did we manage before . . . 😀 ?
That weather sounds nightmarish….bon courage, Eha…
Had I ever forsook cake, it would be lemon drizzle than reunited us.
It’s hard to resist, isn’t it:)
A perfect cake for these gray days. Nothing like a little sweet citrus to brighten things up a little. Beautiful.
those citrus notes always work to sharpen and brighten the moment:)
you have the same weather as us, though we do not have the drizzle or lovely cakes.. c
I’m betting that you have very fine buns, Celi:)
trying to reach through the screen, but I guess my hand isn’t magical enough, but so is your cake and your photography. I also love the plate, looks like a grandma type of porcellan dish.
Exactly right…that’s a grandma plate…one the last survivors of our many moves..:)
MTM is still in his cakehood, Roger. Great word.
Good to hear, Andra, and thanks:)
Let us all eat cake. 😉 And such a lovely one that is!
🙂
I now hunger for cake, but I have no place to back it, so I will save the reciepe until I get back to Calgary (home).
I think you’ll love it…bon voyage:)
I love your paean to cake, Roger! Wonderful writing, as ever….loved the bit about guiding the kids through cakehood, but with better dentistry! And being ‘lost in the sugary bosom of gateau’!
Cake, dentists and me have a bad history:)
Likewise… 😦
Yum! It is cake weather! And super drizzly. Even on Mallorca I finally broke down and bought a space heater last night… best decision ever as my apartment is rather charming but was built before central heating. Who knew it would get this cold? I need some cake to warm me up 🙂
We live in a stone house with only a big wood burner to heat it…we do have a heated towel rail in the bathroom which gets pretty essential about now:)
Brrrr!! You really do need cake! Enjoy the cozy weather 🙂
Just the kind of cake I like 🙂 looks really appetizing!
Good choice and good taste:) thanks for visiting!
Yum! What a mouth-watering photo. I may just print it and eat it.
I hope it tastes as good as it looks:)
Reading this on the way back from Kings Dental Hospital. Wanting some lemon drizzle to cheer me up now as its been ages since I made one but probably one of the contributing factors to my appointment this afternoon 😦 great post as always!
I’m no stranger to dental hospitals and there’s no question that sugar is the villain:)
Ah, we’ve had a miserable raw, cold, rainy day with sleet and snow thrown in. I should go off and search for cake. Medicinal, right?
Absolutely….a little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down:)
😊
Mmmmm! But, I’ve always had trouble catching those darn free-range eggs… they scamper about so! 😉
I wait until they’re asleep and then grab them:)
I’ve never entered the cake age, but cookies…now that’s a different story. As always you have such a unique way of telling your story.
Ah, the biscuit thing…the thin end of the wedge:)
I cannot recall exactly when I turned away from cakes, Roger, but turn I did. Even so, add a citrus drizzle to any cake top and I’ll forget that we once parted ways. Yes, I’m easy. 🙂
A twist of lemming and over the cliff you go:)