Recipe: A Delectable Lemon Drizzle Cake

A tasty treat for your weekend...

Una Kavanagh

Today’s recipe for a delicious Lemon Drizzle Cake is courtesy of Dermot O’ Sullivan.

“A lemon drizzle cake is ever so easy to bake, the recipe is straight-forward and best of all, it keeps very well for days in an airtight cake tin making it a perfect go-to cake for when friends drop by unannounced” he writes.

“The one big mistake to make is to place all the ingredients into a mixer and let the mixer do the work. This will give you a cake, but not a light, fluffy, delicious cake which you will get if you take that little extra time and follow the simple steps below when baking.”

Recipe

(Serves 8-10)

Shopping List:

– 225g Unsalted Butter (room temperature)

– 225g Caster Sugar

– 4 Large Free Range Eggs

– Zest & Juice 1 Lemon

– 225g Plain Flour

– 1 Tsp Baking Powder
– 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

Lemon Drizzle:

– 2 Lemons

– 100g Caster Sugar

Lemon Icing:

– 250g Icing Sugar (sieved)

– Juice of 1 Lemon (sieved to remove pulp)

Crystallised Flowers:

– 1 Egg White (whisked)
– Caster Sugar
– Rose Petals

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180c (150c Fan) / Gas 4. Brush and line your (8 inch) cake tin or (8 x 21cm) loaf tin very lightly with melted butter (careful not to over grease your tin base). Sieve your flour, with the baking powder into a large wide bowl from a height and repeat twice to incorporate more air into the mix before setting aside.

2. Cream the butter very well with an electric hand whisk until very light and creamy, before gradually adding in the caster sugar in stages to form a pale and creamy texture. Add in the eggs one at a time, adding 1 tbsp of flour with each addition to prevent the mixture from curdling.

3. Fold in your vanilla extract, lemon zest and the juice of one lemon. Gently fold in the sieved flour and pour the mixture into your loaf tin or cake tin. Smooth the surface of the mixture and place in the oven for 40 – 45 mins. Test the cake to see if it is fully baked by placing a skewer in the centre of the cake and if it comes out clean, the cake is fully baked.

4. While the cake is baking, juice two lemons over a sieve and place the juice in a saucepan with the caster sugar. A few minutes before the cake is baked, place the lemon juice and sugar over a medium heat and make a hot syrup. Take the cake out of the oven, pierce the cake with the skewer all over and then pour the syrup over the cake allowing the cake to soak up all the lemon syrup. Set aside for a number of hours before icing, there is no problem leaving the cake there over night in the tin.

5. Once the cake is completely cool, remove it from the tin and place it on a cake stand or clean board. Mix the sieved lemon juice with the icing sugar (to form a texture similar to the consistency of paint). Then simply pour over the centre of the cake and allow it to drizzle down the sides by itself. (Tip: If you are using a round cake tin, sit the cake on a jam jar resting on a clean chopping board).