‘Ne’er cast a clout till May is out’, do you know that saying? After 50 ahem years I just say, ‘you know there’ll be at least one big frost or Snow in April to try and catch us out’.

There was a frenzy of seed planting last weekend. The greenhouse not only survived the winter but nursed some winter salads so I have an early crop already. With the greenhouse in mind I’m trying cucumber and watermelon for the first time, along with sweet peppers. I get most of my seeds from Real Seeds these days, they have an exciting selection of things to grow for eating, some of which I’ve never heard of. They don’t sell F1 hybrids or genetically modified seeds. Because their seeds are open pollinated, they do encourage you to save your seeds to grow again.

The Lemon tree overwintered in the greenhouse, safe from the snails that developed a taste for the leaves. I bought it on a whim in a supermarket, While it was indoors it flowered profusely with very perfumed flowers but nothing set. Propably because they weren’t being pollinated. Since it’s been outside there’s been barely a sign of a flower, let along anything setting. So I was really happy when some friends brought me some Citrus fruit from their Spanish Garden at the beginning of the year. Lemons and Limes are a permanent feature in the fridge but I don’t usually buy Grapefruit, much as I love the taste. Just way too fiddly to eat. But gifted with two huge fresh beauties I decided it was a good excuse to dream up a recipe for a Grapefruit cake.

Pre-heat your oven to 180deg Celsius (fan) and line a 20cm (8 inch) cake tin.

Grate the zest of one Grapefruit, then juice it. If it yields more than 50ml juice add another 30g flour to the mix.
Remove the fruit from the remaining grapefruit/s and cut into chunks.

Add the brown sugar and water to a small pan. Boil gently, keeping an eye on it, until it is just about reduced to a thick syrup. As soon as it starts to thicken, remove from heat, add the graperuit chunks (with any juice you collect while cutting it up) and allow to cool.

Cream butter and sugar until they are light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, allowing them to mix in well before the next addition. Gradually add the flour and baking powder mixture along with the zest. Mix in the juice. If you’re using a food mixer, remove the batter from the mixer now and fold in the yogurt by hand to have a thick, smooth cake mix.

Add just enough cake mix to line the bottom of the tin to about 2cm. Dot teaspoonfuls (just under half) of the cooled grapefruit syrup mix around the bottom. Cover with spoonfuls of more cake mix and repeat . Try not to have any grapefruit mixture at the edge of the layer. Finally dot the the last layer of cake mix with the last couple of spoonfuls of the grapefruit mix.

Bake at 180deg Celsius for 45 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Leave it to cool before cutting.

Enjoy!

*I started making this with 2 grapefruits but once I started having to buy the grapefruits I found that the amount of fruit you can liberate varies so much it’s worth having the option of adding a third grapefruit to the shopping list.