As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I’ve learned quite a lot from my mother in cooking terms over the years. For the most part its been a case of me picking up stuff by watching her at work, but every now and then I’ll steal a recipe or two off her too.

This cake is one of those firm family favourites, and it even gets the royal seal of approval from my very sweet, but ever so fussy niece, Ksenia. It’s a bit tangier than most lemon drizzle cakes because of there’s more lemon juice in the glaze, and that’s how we like it.

Ingredients

For the cake

125g unsalted butter

175g self-raising flour

175g caster sugar

2 large eggs

Zest of 2 lemons

4 tablespoons of milk

A pinch of salt

Butter for greasing your loaf tin

For the ‘drizzle’

The juice of 2 lemons (about 6 tablespoons)

Zest of 1 lemon

100g icing sugar

Method

You’re going to bake this cake in a loaf tin, so first up, prepare and line it. Use a half kilo tin, smear it with butter, and then line with greaseproof paper. Now set your oven to 180 c to get it up to cooking temp.

Now cream together the butter and the sugar in a large mixing bowl; it makes life a whole lot easier, and the process faster if your butter is at room temperature. Creaming basically means beating the butter and the sugar together until it attains a ‘creamy’ texture. You can do this with a wooden spoon, but a hand whisk will save your arms.

Next add the two eggs and the lemon zest and beat them well into the butter and sugar mixture. Now fold in the flour and the salt. You want to mix in all the flour, but you don’t want to beat the hell out of the mixture, so do it gently with a spatula or something similar. Finally mix in the milk, which loosens the mixture a tad.

Pour the mixture into the loaf tin, shake from side to side so it levels out, and then pop onto the middle shelf of the oven. The cake is going to cook for around 45 minutes. When ready it will have risen, and the outside will be a dark golden brown.

When the cake is almost ready, make the drizzle. Put the lemon juice, icing sugar and zest into a small saucepan and heat until the sugar has dissolved. The syrup shouldn’t boil, but will be hot.

When you think the cake is ready, slide a sharp knife into the centre. If it comes out clean, it’s ready to come out, if not put it back in for another 4 or 5 minutes. As soon as you’ve taken the cake out of the oven, perforate it’s surface all over with a toothpick by sticking it in about half way. You’re doing this to help the syrup sink into the sponge whilst it’s still warm, and it’s well worth taking the time to make sure the top is properly peppered with holes.

Now pour the drizzle all over the top, trying to make sure it is absorbed evenly. The cake will have risen more at the centre so the syrup will naturally run towards the edges, so make sure you keep spooning it over the middle.

Now the hard bit, you have to wait until the cake is completely cooled before cutting it or it will crumble. When it is finally ready to eat, serve with a nice cuppa, or as a pudding with some Greek yoghurt ever so slightly sweetened with maple syrup or honey.

Tags: Cake, Drizzle, Eggs, Flour, Icing, Lemon, Mum, Sugar, Syrup

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 at 9:56 pm and is filed under Recipes, Sweet Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.