Lemon drizzle cake is intensely lemony. It’s one of Britain’s most popular cakes.
Lemon Drizzle Cake: A Food Of My People
Lately I’ve been hearing my ancestral voices. Britain and my relatives have been on my mind for a while so I guess that’s the reason. I really wanted to be there in late August for my youngest nephew’s 40th birthday (I still can’t believe it), but it just didn’t work out.
Naturally, lots of foods I grew up with were constantly in my head too. Since I love the taste of lemon to excess, the first entry just had to be lemon drizzle cake. I joked around with people I gave some to by saying it was a “food of my people.” The joke is that no one actually considers Britons as “ethnic” in any way, but I guess we are to some degree. Anyway, the joke fit and the cake is scrummy!!!
Weigh Weigh Weigh
That bears repeating; loudly–WEIGH INGREDIENTS.
Before I started weighing ingredients when I baked, I didn’t get consistent results. The major reason is flour. A “cup” of flour can vary wildly by how it’s measured. Unless a recipe is specific and tells you to “lightly spoon into the cup,” it’s sort of up to you. If you dip-and-sweep, that weighs a heck of a lot more than lightly-spooned flour. This produces very inconsistent results.
However when you weigh your ingredients, 8 ounces of flour is always 8 ounces of flour so you get the same results every time. Another added benefit is that weighing is much less labor intensive; it goes very quickly. And there’s less cleanup too.
So do yourself (and your baking) a big favor and buy a digital kitchen scale, Many are under $10 and once you start weighing and seeing the results, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.
A Nice Extra Touch
If you grow lemon verbena or lemon balm, add a tablespoon to the cake batter. That idea is not mine; it comes from Britain’s goddess of baking Mary Berry.
The added herb also adds a small pop of color to the cake and will make it even more lemony.
The Recipe
Lemon Drizzle Cake
Ingredients
- 8 oz butter at room temperature plus extra for greasing
- 8 oz sugar
- 10 oz self-raising flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 4 eggs
- 4 tbs milk
- 2 lemons finely grated zest only
For the glaze:
- 6 oz sugar
- 2 lemons juice only
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Grease a 13 x 9-inch pan with butter and line the pan (up the sides too) with parchment and grease that with butter too.
- Measure all the ingredients into a large bowl and beat for 2 minutes, or until well blended. Turn the mixture into the prepared pan and level the top.
- Bake for 35–40 minutes, until the cake has shrunk a little from the sides of the pan and springs back when lightly touched with a fingertip in the centre of the cake.
- To make the glaze. Mix the sugar with the lemon juice and stir to a runny consistency.
- Leave the cake to cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then lift out, with the lining paper still attached, and place on wire rack set over a tray.
- Brush the glaze all over the surface of the warm cake and leave to set. Remove the lining paper and cut into slices to serve
Sounds great. Can you please tell us how to make this recipe with regular, non raising flour. Thanks.
Here’s the formula from King Arthur flour, but I was able to get a small bag of it at my store if you don’t want to bother making it yourself. There’s lots of stuff you can make with it though like the 2-ingredient dough that you can make lots of stuff with. My garlic knots and air fryer apple fritters use that dough.
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/homemade-self-rising-flour-recipe