Welcome to the weekend, readers!
Now, I promised earlier this week that I would share my second favourite baked goods recipe. Gold medal is the brownies of wonder. But this, this is a deserving second place.
We’ve all had a good lemon drizzle cake. It’s not that difficult to knock up a decent one. BBC Good Food do a lovely version.
But this? This is something else. This is sharp. This is tangy. This is addictive. Everyone who puts this in their mouth says it’s the best they’ve ever tasted.
The original is Hugh-Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Lemon Trickle Cake from the River Cottage cookbook, but I can’t bring myself to call it that. I’ve slightly adapted it.
The ingredients are simple:
For the cake:
175g butter
175g caster sugar
Zest of 3 lemons (don’t skimp on the lemons, readers. Big, unwaxed, organic beauties)
3 eggs
175g of flour
Icing:
200g icing sugar
Juice of 3 lemons
How to:
Beat the sugar and butter until pale. Don’t skimp on this step. Beat until even your stand mixer is tired…you want them as light and fluffy as possible.
Add in the lemon zest and mix a bit more. The eggs are added 1 at a time, each with a a third of the flour. This prevents curdling.
Mix until everything is combined. Put this into a greased loaf tin and into the oven at 170 degrees c for 45-50 minutes until cooked.
Whilst the cake is baking, get a bowl and mix the juice of those three lemons with 200g icing sugar.
Lick the bowl. It’s not even sickly.
Now, readers? Are you ready for the magic?
Get yourself something stab-worthy. I use a skewer. When the cake is still warm, and still in the tin, stab it liberally. Drizzle it with the lemon icing. Drizzle in all over, we don’t want any naked bits. The icing soaks through the cake to create the most intense lemon drizzle you will ever taste. It is unbelievable.
Don’t remove the cake from the tin until the icing has soaked in, because it’s a hell of a mess to clean up. I speak from bitter experience.
This cake keeps in the fridge for up two two days in an airtight container. It won’t last that long. No apologies.
Enjoy x
9 Comments
Ok this is on the list for my next baking marathon. The brownie (should that be The Brownie?) went down a treat by the way. Thoroughly enjoyed by all, accompanied by my triumphant declarations of ‘it worked!’ ‘I can bake!’ and ‘Anna was right!’
Next up…millionaire’s shortbread please. Ta x
Hurrah! So glad, Lucy!
We were obviously on the same cakey wavelength this morning!
I do love a lemon drizzle cake.
I am incredibly rubbish at baking, but I think I will give this one a fair try! Sounds absolutely gorgeous, and any lemony dessert is just awesome…
Andrea de Gabriel
Is it wrong that I dribbled a bit while reading this??!? This is totally going on the baking list
Is that self raising flour or plain flour?? I wanna make it today but am terrified of it being a fail!! I have really got into baking since being a Mrs!! xx
Alex, I usually use self-raising but if you’re going to use plain, the just sift it first. It’s so easy I swear you cannot fail x
Oh my god Anna I made it and it went down a great big storm!! Thank you so much for sharing the recipe I will definately be pulling that beast out when people come round! I think I have a baking addiction!!! xx
I LOVE lemon drizzle cake. And this looks AH-MAY-ZING!!!