Lemon and Sage Cake (butter free)

I found myself with a load of sage to use up (as you do), but didn't really fancy just throwing it into each of my dinners for the next 500 nights.

Ok I'm being dramatic, it's not like the time I had a massive wodge of coriander to use up.

In any case, I wanted to try and just use it up all in one go and naturally, I figured baking it into a cake would be a good way to go. Now, I've never baked a cake with sage in it before, but I've done an Orange and Rosemary Cake before, so figured, hm, I should be able to create something from that, right...?

Thankfully, the answer was yes!

I decided to pair the sage with lemon, using both the juice and zest. The sage is finely chopped and mixed into the cake mixture, as well as sprinkled on the top. I was a bit worried about the sage leaves burning on the top, so had initially decided not to do this. However, after 10 minutes in the oven, I thought, ah, might as well. So I whipped the cake out again quickly, added more sage on top then popped in back into the oven.

And look, it worked! No burnt sage! And you know what? It really was delicious too - it went down very well with those I shared it with.

Lemon and Sage Cake

Print-friendly recipe

For an 8" square tin (15 slices):

2 eggs
200g sugar
175ml olive oil
Juice (50ml) and zest of 1 lemon
150g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
12 + 6 sage leaves, finely chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Beat the eggs in a bowl with the sugar, oil and lemon juice.
3. In a large mixing bowl, sift in the flour and baking powder. Mix in the 12 chopped sage leaves and zest.
4. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture, folding in until just mixed.
5. Transfer to a lined tin, then bake for 10 minutes.
6. Sprinkle the remaining 6 chopped sage leaves over the top of the cake, then return to the oven for about 20 minutes, or until you can pull a toothpick out clean.

More Hungry Jenny cakes here.

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