Will the summer sunshine disappear if I comment on it? Or perhaps it’s about to disappear anyway. The weather right now certainly seems too good to be true for all things Jubilee …

But then, as the sun him(her?)self once told Frank O’Hara:

Just keep on
like I do and pay no attention. You’ll
find that people always will complain
about the atmosphere, either too hot
or too cold too bright or too dark, days
too short or too long.
If you don’t appear
at all one day they think you’re lazy
or dead. Just keep right on, I like it.

A sun with attitude.

“Awesome!” as L would say (and she should know, being someone not unfamiliar with the concept of attitude).

I made some little sundrops for the children’s school summer fête last weekend. They didn’t really look chock-a-block full of attitude, but I have to tell you that there was no way they were going to let me dress them in anything other than their natural, feisty golden colours. And when you consider that these could be just about the only sweet celebration treats you’ll find right now that don’t come in various shades of red, white or blue …

Now – that’s attitude for you 😉

Lemon Almond Sundrops

7 oz butter
7 oz caster sugar
4 eggs
zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsp orange flower water
2 oz plain flour
7 oz ground almonds

6 oz icing sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp water

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Grease and baseline a 9″x12″ rectangular baking tray.

Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs gradually. Stir in the lemon zest and juice, and the orange water.

Carefully fold in the flour and ground almonds.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth evenly. Bake for 30 minutes until golden and springy. Leave for 5 minutes to cool before turning out onto a wire rack.

Prepare the glaze by mixing together the icing sugar, lemon juice and water.

When the cake is just cool enough to handle, use a circular biscuit cutter to cut out … well, circles really (what else can I say?). I used a diameter of 1 7/8″, which made 24 circles.

Dip the tops of each sundrop in the glaze and return to the wire rack to set. Lick your fingers (because they’ll be very sticky by now).