So very heiter: Rebecca's lemon drizzle cake

What never fails to make me feel heiter? My sister-in-law’s lemon drizzle cake. We had it at our wedding, her wedding and at several other family celebrations. It felt like the best choice to celebrate two milestones earlier this month too: it was my 35th birthday and heiter turned 6, hooray!

After posting a photo of the cake on social media two weeks ago, many of you asked if I could share my version of the recipe with them so I thought I’d make a little blog post out of it. Hope you’ll find it useful!

Be heiter,

Katharina x

Ingredients for the cake mixture:

200g unsalted butter or a dairy-free/vegan alternative - make sure it’s soft but not runny

250g (caster) sugar

3 medium eggs, at room temperature, beaten - vegan alternative: 3 tbsp chia seeds plus 9 of water

finely grated zest of 2 medium unwaxed lemons

250g self-raising flour (if you can’t get hold of self-raising flour, use normal flour and add 2 tsp of baking soda or powder)

1/2 tsp baking powder

100ml (plant) milk, at room temperature

Ingredients for the original topping:

100g (caster) sugar

juice of 2 medium unwaxed lemons

finely grated zest of 1 medium unwaxed lemon

Ingredients for my cream cheese topping (see photo):

100g icing sugar

400g cream cheese (or a vegan alternative)

juice of 2 medium unwaxed lemons

optional: flowers or blossoms to decorate

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees/gas 4.

• In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer, mix the soft butter, sugar, eggs (or the chia seed-water-mixture) and lemon zest.

• Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl, then add the milk.

• Beat with a wooden spoon, electric whisk or food mixer until all ingredients are thoroughly combined and smooth.

• Transfer the mixture into a prepared square tin that is lined with baking paper or greased with oil or butter. Alternatively, you can use two round tins. Spread the mixture evenly. Bake in the oven until the cake is golden brown (for about 50-60min, with two round tins it might take less time).

• Meanwhile, make the topping.

• For the original topping, mix the sugar with the lemon juice and zest to make a runny glaze. As soon as the cake is done, remove it from the oven and stand the tin on a wire cooling rack. Prick the top of the cake with a cocktail stick and then quickly spoon the lemon topping over so that it trickles down into the holes. Leave to cool completely before removing the cake from the tin.

• If you’d like to go for a cream cheese topping, I recommend leaving the cake out to cool over night. Remove the cake from the tin and it on a chopping board or cooling rack. Carefully (and evenly) pour the juice over the top of the cake so that it becomes more juicy and let it stand for a bit. In the meanwhile, mix the cheese (or vegan alternative) with the icing sugar. Before you serve the cake, add the cream cheese topping on top of your cake and spread evenly. If you used two round tins (rather than one square one), use some of the topping on one of the cakes and spread evenly. Sandwich the second cake on top and finish the now two layered cake with the rest of your topping. If you’d like, you can decorate your cake with blossoms or flowers.

• Enjoy!

Words & image: Katharina Geissler-Evans, heiter magazine

Dreams come true: reflections on how I achieved one of my biggest goals

If you've followed along on social media, you probably already know that I am closer to one of my biggest dreams than ever before. Since founding heiter in 2016, I had dreamt of publishing heiter in print and now, after the crowdfunding campaign ended successfully, I can happily announce that it will finally happen this year!

I still need to work on the timeline and chat to a few more stakeholders involved but it's very likely that the heiter print publication will hit the shelves in summer/early autumn. I can't tell you how excited I get when writing these words! It took such a long time to get to where I am right now. Also, it is proof that one should never stop believing: dreams can come true and yes, the journey to get there might not be easy but it's so worth it.

Two of the things that definitely helped me along the way were the following:

• resilience and embracing change rather fearing it

• my community

Why am I telling you that? Because maybe you're also working on fulfilling a dream. Maybe you don't know where to start. Maybe you find it hard to continue believing in it all or you're actually thinking about giving up.

What I've learned is that things are never linear. Sometimes it's about leaning in and working with the unexpected so that you can move along on your journey. Remember when my first campaign failed a few weeks ago? I saw it as an opportunity rather than a failure and built on my learnings. Also, with time I realised how important it is to listen to yourself, trust your gut feeling and blend out the noise around you.

I was faced with quite a few pessimistic comments when it came to the print publication, especially after not achieving my first crowdfunding goal. I didn't want to let them bring me down though. I knew that I could trust my intuition. I knew that somehow it would work out, even if I didn't necessarily know how.

My second big learning from my recent experience was that it's ok to ask for and accept help. There was no way of finishing my campaign successfully without the support of the people who believe in my work and/or care about me as a person. A few years back I would have not dared to reach out to others but time has taught me that a journey is easier if not walked alone.

Have you had similar experiences with achieving a goal in the past? Or are you dreaming of making one come true? Do comment below and let me know about it. I'd love to hear about your learnings and/or hopes. Alternatively, you can also dm me on Instagram.

Be heiter,

Katharina x

Words: Katharina Geissler-Evans, heiter

Image: tobetold

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