Lemon Cheesecake Poke Cake

There's no escaping a love for lemon flavoured anything in this house (these jam drops with lemon curd are still a hands down favourite), so when I spotted this recipe in a recent recipe magazine I knew I had to make it.

But as I read through the list of ingredients, I realised it was a packet mix. Now, I've got nothing against packet mixes, but I've come to rely on them so much lately that I really wanted to test my skill, and see if I could come up with the perfect cake without opening the box (but I bought the packet, just in case)

Finding a plain vanilla cake recipe wa actually much harder than it should have been. None of the magazines I flipped through seemed to have one, and the Taste website had a grand total of two that were just plain vanilla. In the end, I cobbled together a bit of a muffin/cake hybrid which seemed to do the trick.

I like to do my recipe testing on Sophie-free days, that way I can take my time and really read the recipe, but I'd been putting this off for a couple of days by the time I finally baked it, and misread the recipe, forgetting to take the cream cheese out of the fridge. Hand held mixer to the rescue, you'd never have known I wasn't paying attention.

The final result was a moist cake filled with tangy cream cheese. We had our first piece while the icing was still fresh, which gave the little kids too big a zesty lemon hit, but after a day in the fridge everyone devoured it. This is definitely on the make-again list.

Cake Ingredients

2 cups self raising flour

1 cup caster sugar

1tsp vanilla

125g cream cheese, softened

2 eggs

½ cup vegetable oil

½ cup milk

* place flour and sugar in bowl, whisk together

* add other ingredients, mix well with electric beaters

* pour into lined cake tin

* bake 180°C  for 45min

* when cooked, cool 5min

* use end of wooden spoon to poke holes carefully around cake, 2cm apart

* allow to cool completely

Cheesecake Filling

125g cream cheese, softened

½ cup lemon curd

* beat together until light and fluffy

* spoon into sandwich bag, seal, snip end off

* squeeze into each hole in cooled cake

* allow to sit 2 minutes

* top up holes if needed

* spread remaining mix over cake top

* refrigerate 15 minutes

Lemon Icing

1 cup icing sugar

juice of 1 lemon

* combine in small bowl, whisk until smooth

* pour over cake, spread gently over cheesecake topping

* slice and eat

** keep cake refrigerated **

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