I have been obsessed with citrus flavours lately and have had this recipe ready and raring to go for a long time now. There has been only one problem. I have been until now, unable to find poppy seeds in the whole of Manchester city centre (and I have looked everywhere!) In the end, I had to buy them from the internet and have them delivered! So the day my poppy seeds came, straight away I set out making them into a cake.

The original recipe was for a cake with a cream cheese frosting. I did not have any cream cheese, so instead I made the frosting using fresh cream (which obviously meant that it needed to be eaten within a day – that was not a problem.)

The cake is light and airy – and I LOVE the crunch from the poppy seeds.

Adapted from this recipe from Delicious magazine.

Ingredients

• 175g butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing
• 175g caster sugar
• Finely grated zest of 2 large lemons
• 3 medium eggs
• 250g self-raising flour
• 50g poppy seeds
• 4 heaped tbsp natural yogurt

For the cream frosting

• 100g whipped cream
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp natural yogurt

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 150°c/fan130°c/gas 2. Grease and line a 19cm x 12cm x 9cm deep loaf tin with baking paper. Put the butter into a bowl and beat with an electric hand whisk until creamy. Add the sugar and beat until it is almost white. Beat in the zest and eggs, 1 at a time, and a spoonful of flour with the second and last egg to prevent curdling. Sift over the rest of the flour and fold it in with the poppy seeds and the yogurt.
2.  Spoon into the tin and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes, then turn out and cool on a wire rack.
3.  Beat the frosting ingredients in a bowl with a wooden spoon until fluffy. Spread thickly over the cake .