This uses a very special gin from Heston’s Waitrose collection but of course any wonderful gin will do. The freshness of lime in this cake gives a zestiness rarely found without tropical flavours so here it is really allowed to shine. To get the best from your zest, use a microplane to get just the brightest green zest from your limes. If you don’t have one (although I highly suggest you buy one, they are seriously a game changer…) you can finely grate them but make sure you don’t get the white pith- this will make it bitter rather then fragrant.

This cake actually gets better with time so don’t panic that you can’t finish it in one sitting, it will be equally delicious- in fact more so, a few days after baking if kept in an airtight tin.

Ingredients:

225g butter

225g caster sugar

4 eggs

225g self-raising flour

4 shots Earl Grey gin

2 limes, zest

Icing:

25ml tonic water

8 shots gin

150g granulated sugar

2 limes, juice

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180. Grease and line loaf tin.

2. Beat butter, lime zest and sugar together until very pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time and beat completely in to mix between each one.

3. Fold in the flour, add the gin and then bake in a loaf tin for 45 minutes.

4. Mix icing ingredients together.

5. When cake is out of oven, poke holes all over and pour over icing.

6. Leave to cool properly until a crust forms then slice and serve!