Simple, tangy lemon drizzle cake.
This is a really simple, really easy but REALLY tasty Lemon Drizzle cake. It was baked for a school cake sale: a ten inch square tray bake, sliced into cup-of-tea sized pieces. It has two finishing touches; a sponge-drenching syrup and a zesty, tangy icing. The cake itself is light and buttery but simple.
Drenching the cake in a sugary syrup ensures a delicious, sweet, tangy sponge and creates a luscious layer of sticky lemon at the top. Licky-sticky fingers are compulsory! Make sure to drizzle the top with a sumptuous, but zesty lemon icing. What could be nicer (and more British?!) than reaching for that nice, hot cuppa and a slice of lemon cake?! Go on, you know you want to….
Recipe adapted from Tana Ramsay:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4942/lemon-drizzle-cake
Lemon Drizzle Tray Bake Cake (Ten inch square pan)
335 g (1 and 1/3 cups PLUS 1 tbsp) unsalted butter, softened
335 g caster sugar (1 and 2/3 cups)
5 eggs
40 ml (1 fluid ounce OR 1/8 cup plus 1 tbsp) buttermilk (or sour cream)
335 g (2 and 3/4 cups) self-raising flour (if using plain, add 1 tbsp baking powder)
Zest of 1 lemon
Lemon Syrup
Juice and zest of 1.5 lemons
100 g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
Lemon Icing
Juice of 1.5 lemons
200 g (2 cups) icing sugar / confectioner’s sugar (you will need to work on this, depending on the yield of lemon juice)
* Grease and line a 10 inch square cake pan.
* Preheat oven to 190 degrees C / 375 degrees F
* In a large bowl, cream together the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy.
* Beat in the eggs, one at a time. (If the mixture curdles, add a spoonful of flour)
* Beat in the buttermilk/sour cream and lemon zest, then gradually sift in the flour, mixing only until incorporated. Pour into the tin.
* Bake in the oven for 45 mins to 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
* When baked, leave to cool in the tin.
* When cool, turn onto a wire cooling rack.
* Whilst the cake is cooling, heat syrup ingredients in a saucepan. It needs to boil and reduce until syrupy, but still runny. Skewer the cake all over and then pour the syrup over slowly, allowing it to run into all of the holes.
* Make the icing – mix the icing sugar and lemon juice until nice and thick, but ‘pourable’. Drizzle generously over the cake and leave to set. When set, slice the cake into pieces that suit you! We got 25 small slices out of ours!
Unsliced....
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