Food is all about the balance. Just like Yin and Yang. When sweet meets savoury.
INGREDIENTS
Main
Unsalted butter, softened | ½ cup, 113g
Caster sugar | 1 cup, 200g
All-purpose flour | 1½ cup, 188g
Eggs | 2 nos
Baking powder | 1 tsp
Salt | ½ tsp (if you are using salted butter, just a pinch of salt will do)
Full cream fresh milk | ½ cup, 122g
Lemon zest | 1 no
Lemon juice | 2 tsp
Fresh rosemary | 1 sprig, finely chopped
Rosemary Buttercream Frosting
Unsalted butter, softened | ¼ cup, 56.5g
Fresh rosemary | 1 sprig
Milk | 1 tbsp
Soft icing sugar | ¾ cup, 95g
Salt | ½ tsp
STEPS
· Preheat the oven to 180C, fan setting before measuring out your ingredients.
· Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
· Add eggs, one at a time to the batter. Low speed.
· Combine flour, baking powder, salt, lemon zest, chopped rosemary in a bowl. Mix well.
· Add the flour mixture and milk to the batter at three parts. Starting and ending with the flour mixture.
· Add in the lemon juice.
· Pour batter into greased loaf pan. Tap the pan on the countertop to release any air trapped within·
· Bake for 50 - 60 minutes. Cool in pan for 15 minutes before removing it completely.
· Allow the loaf to cool completely before frosting.
· To prepare the frosting, add butter and rosemary in a pot. Melt over medium high heat and bring to a boil afterwards for 1 minute. Transfer to a bowl and allow it to cool for an hour. Remove rosemary.
· Using a hand mixer, cream the rosemary butter till light and fluffy. Then add icing sugar, salt and milk. Mix till the buttercream is smooth. You can always add more salt to make the frosting savoury. If buttercream is too soft, add more icing sugar. Otherwise, if it's too stiff, add more milk to texture it.
· Spread buttercream over the loaf with a offset spatula or a butter knife (that's for me! since I don't have a offset spatula at the moment)
· Decorate the cake with more fresh rosemary. I used a dehydrated grapefruit slice (leftovers from my previous bakes) for a more "wow" factor. *Bake grapefruit slices for 2 - 3 hours at 80 degrees in the oven.
*Can be kept air tight container up to 3 days in room temperature for humid countries. Up to a week in cooler countries.
