Spiced Coffee Loaf.

This is the PERFECT cake for a Sunday when you have a million things you want to get done; most of them fun, but including the time consuming task of painting your living room, lots of washing and a run because it's too sunny not to....and you want to not have to get up at 5am.

I wouldn't usually factor baking in on a day like that but I needed a cake for a coffee morning (yes, I woke up one day and I had turned 65) the next day, so I scoured my book shelf for a super speedy low maintenance sort of recipe.

This one turned out to be just the thing, and I made it even easier by chucking everything in my wondrous Magimix and letting that do all the work. It honestly came together in moments...and I'd so much rather make a super easy, unfancypants cake than not make a cake at all.

 It's also a cake rather well suited to the whole coffee morning thing...not a dessert thing that feels wrong at 11 in the morning, not too flavour packed to sit next to coffee and nice and sturdily easy to transport. SO I'd thoroughly recommend it for a busy day that still requires cake, and I'd definitely recommend coffee mornings...coffee, cake and conversation? Winner. With Love and Cake.

Cinnamon Coffee Loaf.

Adpted from a recipe in The Hamlyn All Colour Teatime Favourites

A few notes:

• You could add a whole manner of scrummy things to this...dried fruit, chopped walnuts, different spices. 
• I didn't try it this time round but I'm sure this would be lovely a few days old, toasted, so the butter goes alllllll melty. Yum.
• I'm afraid I whizzed everything up in my food processor to make it extra easy, however, if you don't have one, run the butter into the flour with your finger tips, and stir in the rest of the ingredients with a wooden spoon....still pretty easy.

Makes 1 loaf

You will need

a medium loaf pan (1 lb), greased and lined

225g self-raising flour

100g butter

100g dark muscovado sugar

3 tbsp strong black coffee

2 eggs

1 tsp ground cinnamon

grated zest 1 lemon

• Preheat your oven to 180°.
• Put the flour and butter in your food processor and whizz until the mixture has the look of fine breadcrumbs.
• Add the rest of the ingredients and whizz to combine.
• Pour the mixture into your prepared loaf tin and bake for about 1 hour, though check after 45 minutes to see how it's getting on....you want it risen and firm and deep bronze.
• Remove from the tin as soon as it's cool enough to handle and cool on a wire rack.....or slice and spread with too much butter.