Time for Tea with Lemon Curd Cake

When I was a child we had our main meal in the middle of the day, but this changed when we all started school.  But at the weekends we reverted back - when dinner was at lunchtime and then tea was in the evening. Tea time was always associated with manic baking by my mother as well as doing a hundred other things at the same time.  Now I remember her complaining about the lunacy of doing this especially as I seem to do the exact same thing - often leading to disastrous results.  She used to make a type of wholemeal yeast bread with molasses as well as the traditional soda bread - and for a treat a white soda with dried fruit.  Then she would make fruit scones, apple tart and to finish a cake - coffee, chocolate or even lemon or orange.  This was all after a salad-type start with salad leaves, always butter head (iceberg hadn't made an appearance at this stage), scallions, ham, tomato, boiled egg and cheese probably "air" on the cheddar variety!  Looking back I don't know how we weren't obese but surprisingly none of us were.  During the week we always had pudding which could have been anything from eve's pudding and variations there of - to apple tart or pavlova on a special occasion.  I remember moaning that all our cakes were homemade and we never had "proper" shop-bought cakes like my friends had and which to me were far more desirable!  Occasionally my mother would succombe and buy a Tea Time Express but she would always pronounce it "sawdust"!  As a treat she would buy a coffee log or Bewleys cherry buns as she acknowledged they were "almost" as good as hers!

Another treat was lemon curd as we always had her jam.  I loved lemon curd and often make it myself now I have my own eggs.  I make a Victoria sponge and sandwich it with some of my lemon curd and dust with icing sugar.

The recipe I use for lemon curd comes from a book my aunt bought in a car boot sale in the UK and gave to me, called Cordon Bleu Preserving.  It is a fantastic book and has all sorts of old-fashioned recipes for preserves.

Lemon Curd Recipe
Grated rind and juice of 2 large lemons
75g butter

225g lump sugar (I have no idea what this is I use ordinary sugar)         
3 eggs beaten

Put the lemon rind and juice in a double saucepan (bain marie), add the butter and heat gently, then add the sugar.  Strain the beaten eggs into the pan.  Stir over heat until mixture is thick, then pour into warm, dry jars.  Cover and tie down.

Victoria Sponge
225g softened butter
225g sugar
4 medium eggs
225g white spelt flour or plain wheat flour
1 heaped tsp. baking powder

Cream butter and sugar together until white and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time and continue beating.  Sift in flour and baking powder and fold in with a metal spoon.  Line two sandwich tins and place in a pre-heated oven at gas mark 4 or 180C.  Bake until the centre springs back to a light touch and the cake has shrunk in from the edge of tin.   Cool and sandwich with the lemon curd.  Dust the top with icing sugar and use a lemon zester to make some curly lemon zest decorations and place in centre.  Keep in a cool place if not eaten straight away.