That's toddy as in 'hot toddy', the drink beloved of many an Irish person or Scot on a cold wet day when the sniffles have set in: whisky (for the Scots) or whiskey (for the Irish) with hot water and sugar. If you're feeling up to it, you can put the lot in a pan with cloves and cinammon, although personally I rarely get that far. I thought this cake, which takes a lemon sponge and turns it into something a bit more complex with the addition of whiskey and marmalade, looked like it could be a heavy thing, especially given the marmalade (thrown in because I had a gift pot of whisky marmalade at the back of the cupboard that wasn't going to get used otherwise). I feared something far too close in texture to a pudding of my early school days: sponge covered with marmalade served from great deep aluminium trays, to be drowned in lumpy anaemic custard. But lo and behold, it emerged from the oven a light and delicate affair that carried just enough depth of flavour to make it interesting without so much as a hint of institutional stodge.
