Lemon poppy seed cake

Why do we always make cakes only for celebrations?  They are needed more when you are not exactly in the pink.

Gau had his first Tamil finals yesterday.  Pretty bad as expected.  After I got over the irritation of the the brat never hitting his books or practicing his writing, I decided to bake a cake.  Inspired by Mich of Eat a piece of cake, I decided to explore Delia Smith's recipe.

She had a lemon poppy seed cake in her website and I had 4 organic lemons waiting to be used for a whole week now.  Match made in heaven but for a minor issue. The cream-of-wheatish (in Appearance) Indian poppy seeds (Gasa-Gasa) look nothing like their American Counterparts which are bluish-black colored spheres.  They taste much better though, I don't know if it is the preparation or the poppy seeds themselves but I will take Gasagase Payasa or Kurma over Poppy seed muffins or sour cream cake.  In this instance, I decided to use the seeds in the batter and leave it out of the topping.  I did not have any self-rising flour, I just added an extra tea spoon of baking powder to the regular flour (maida).

I had my 3 year old sieve the flour from a height to mix the baking powder and air the flour.  He had a blast.
Ingredients

For the Cake:

1. 175g self-raising flour (175g maida + 1 tspoon baking powder)
2. 1 teaspoon baking powder
3. 175g spreadable butter  ( melted the butter by mistake, again no harm done)
4. 175g golden caster sugar (regular white worked)
5. 3 large eggs
6. grated zest of 3 large lemons  (medium sized worked fine)
7.  juice of large lemon
8. 40g poppy seeds

 For the syrup :

1. juice of 3 large lemons  (Indian lemons are medium-ish, so I added juice of a sweet lime)
2. grated zest of 1 large lemon
3. 50g golden icing sugar, sifted (forgot to sift, no harm done)
4. 100g golden granulated sugar (again, regular worked fine)

Sieve the flour and baking powder from a height to aerate the flour.

In another bowl, beat the eggs,  sugar and zest
Add the butter and continue beating

Mix in the flour

Mix in the poppy seeds and lime juice

Pour into greased rectangular tray (about 18 X 28)

Bake at 175 deg for 30 minutes until cake feels springy to touch and a toothpick inserted at the centre comes out clean.

Meanwhile mix all the ingredients for syrup and cook on low heat until the sugars melt into a syrup.

Once the cake is out, poke holes all over with a knitting needle, pour the syrup.

Garnish with chocolate chips and/or golden sugar granules if desired.

A bright sunny cake to improve your spirits

My pre-schooler digging in, not waiting for a fork.

This is for Cook Like a Star: Delia Smith hosted by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out and Mich from Piece of Cake.
I am also posting this to the Bake Fest # 17 hosted by Sayantani of a Homemaker's Diary, started by Varadhini of cook's joy.