Sometimes you just need a no-nonsense cake.

One for the weekend, obligingly providing slices of dense, butteriness with every cup of tea.

One for when friends are calling in and you want to offer sustenance, but nothing too fussy.

One to wrap in foil and take on a camping trip or to stuff into a rucksack for a walk on the hills.

This weekend I made two.

One for home and one for George to take to camp, to be eaten by hungry boy scouts between activities, or possibly to be served up for pudding with hot custard. Who knows? They said some cake would be nice and when it comes to baking you only need ask me once.

I nearly didn’t post this. It’s just such a basic cake I wasn’t sure whether it was worthy. It’s certainly not the prettiest. If you want a prettier, fancier version, a true ‘drizzle cake’ with dribbly icing, then click through to my Triple Orange Drizzle.

But this is the one that was requested. It’s old school. with crunchy granulated sugar on it’s lemon-drenched top. Unassuming and infinitely more transportable.

Plain and Simple – Things{we}make Lemon Cake

• 175 g (6oz) self-raising flour
• 1 level tsp baking powder
• 175 g (6oz) Soft Butter (Clover)
• 175 g (6oz) caster sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 3 eggs
• 2 tbsp semi-skimmed milk
• finely grated rind of 2 lemons

Lemon syrup

• Juice of 2 lemons, strained
• 115 g (4oz) sugar

You can make this with 1 lemon and 1 orange too, just use half of the juice of the orange.

1. Preheated the oven to 160°C
2. Beat the butter until soft, add the sugar and beat until pale and fluffy.
3. Add the flour, baking powder, vanilla, zest and eggs and beat until smooth.
4. Add the milk to gain a soft spoonable batter.
5. Spoon the mixture into a greased and base lined 1kg (2lb) loaf tin.
6. Bake at at 160°C (fan oven) for 45-50 mins until a skewer comes out clean.
7. Turn out onto a wire rack (or leave in the tin if you prefer)
8. Put the lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan and heat gently until the sugar has mostly dissolved.
9. Stab some holes on the top of the cake with a skewer.
10. Whilst cake is warm, drizzle the syrup over so that it soaks into the cake – I do this with the cake in the sink, or you can just pour it all into the cake tin if you like soggy edges.
11. Sprinkle with a little more sugar for sparkly crunch.