Wednesday 25th November is Sir Archibald Garrod’s birthday and to celebrate we are asking our supporters to host a Coffee Morning to raise awareness and money for AKU. In this weeks blog, AKU team members Eve and Lydia bake their own cakes to share recipe ideas and inspire AKU supporters to host their own Coffee Morning!

Eve and Lydia started off with a Lemon drizzle cake. This is a very simple recipe, which always go down a treat at tea parties!

Ingredients:
225g unsalted butter, softened
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
225g self-raising flour
For the drizzle topping:
juice 1 ½ lemons
85g caster sugar

Start by preheating the oven to 180C/fan (160C/gas). Then beat together the butter and sugar until pale and creamy, before adding the eggs one at a time, while slowly mixing through.

Sift the flour into the mixture and add the lemon zest and mix it all together.

Line a loaf tin with greaseproof paper, spoon the mixture into the tin and level the top. Your cake is now ready to go in the oven!

Suggested baking time is 45-50 mins. If you find the top of the cake is darkening, you might want to put some foil over the top to prevent it burning. To make sure it is ready, stick a skewer through the centre of the cake and it should come out clean!

While the cake is cooling, mix together the sugar and lemon juice for the lemon drizzle mixture. Prick the cake all over with a fork and drizzle the juice over.

Leave the cake to cool before serving!

Next – Eve and Lydia made fruit and nut bars! This recipe has been recommended by Shirley Judd, the dietician at the NAC, as a low protein recipe (2.5g per 57g serving).

Ingredients:
450g eating apples, stewed
5 tablespoons orange juice
225g mixed dried fruits (eg apricots, dates, cranberries) roughly chopped
100g mixed nuts (eg almonds, hazelnuts) chopped
75g wholemeal self-raising flour
25g desiccated coconut
1 tbsp oil

Preheat the oven to 180C/fan (160C/gas).

To stew the apples, peel the core and chop them. Then add them to a pan with 2 tbsp water. Cover and cook over a gentle heat for 10-15 mins, stirring occasionally.

Chop the fruit and nuts and add them to a mixing bowl with the stewed apples, orange juice, flour, desiccated coconut and oil. Mix all ingredients together.

Spoon into baking tin, lined with greaseproof paper. Smooth out and press down slightly, then bake for 35-40 minutes, until golden and firm.

Leave to cool before serving!

You can then serve these delicious cakes (or your own recipes) at your very own Coffee Morning on 25th November! We shared ours with our lucky colleagues in the office today and will be baking more cakes for our very own AKU Coffee Morning on Garrod day!

Want to share your own favourite cake recipes? Send the recipe to eve@akusociety.org and we will add it to the Coffee Morning event on the website!