Very lemony lemon drizzle cake

Did I say I want to start with my archive first? Well…being quite busy this week, why not post something fresh. And I mean it - really fresh from my oven. Can you smell lemon? Yes, lemon inside and lemon outside. I smell LEMON DRIZZLE CAKE.

I say, why not start with something for beginners. This cake is soooo easy to make and I will show you how. Look at these beautiful lemons.

I use both lemon zest and lemon juice for this recipe. Here is little advice how to pick up the best lemons: skin should be bright yellow without any brown spots. Look for firm, but not too hard nor too soft fruit which feels quite heavy for its size. Smaller lemons have more juice; bigger tend to be dryer with thicker skin. Before grating zest, wash lemons very thoroughly and then dry them with a kitchen towel.

Before we jump to the recipe, let me tell you I like very lemony cake and not very sweet. I use quite a lot lemon zest in the batter and I drizzle the cake while it is still hot so it gets soaked with lemon juice.

INGREDIENTS

CAKE

butter (softened)..................................................230 g

caster sugar.........................................................200 g

eggs (large).............................................................4

vanilla extract......................................................1 tsp

all purpose flour..................................................260 g

baking powder.....................................................2 tsp

salt.......................................................................1/4 tsp

lemon zest...........................................................2 lemons

lemon juice..........................................................60 ml

LEMON FROSTING

icing sugar.........................................................130 g

lemon juice.....................................................3 - 4 tbs

- Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C

- Grease bottom and sides of a round cake pan diameter 22 cm and line the bottom with baking paper.

- Sift together flour with baking powder and mix in lemon zest and salt.

- Using your mixer beat the butter with sugar until fluffy, beat in the vanilla and then add eggs one at a time.

- Using batter spatula fold the flour mix to the wet batter in three additions and lemon juice in two additions, starting and finishing with flour. Mix until smooth, but gently and don't over beat.

- Bake 35 to 45 minutes (time depends on your oven). Try insert toothpick to the middle of cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is done. If some batter sticks to it, give the cake more time in the oven. Don't overbake, or the cake will be too dry.

See on that picture above, how the cake is pulling slightly from pan sides. It is sign that the cake is done.

After removing from the oven, let the cake cool slightly (about 15 minutes) in the pan, and the gently remove it.

Now you have two options. Let the cake cool completely before frosting it to get dryer cake with thicker frosting. Or apply the frosting why the cake is still warm to get moister lemony cake thinner sugar crust. I am fan of the second option.

To make the frosting, sift icing sugar to small bowl and gradually tablespoons of lemon juice to get creamy and smooth sugar paste, the pour it over the top of the cake. Let it drizzle from the sides - thus drizzle cake :)

Try to use good quality icing sugar (not "gula donut" please) which will stay dry even in our tropical weather.

Let the frosting dry and harden in refrigerator, before cutting into the cake. It is best to left it overnight in the fridge. In air tight container in refrigerator, the cake keeps well for 5 days.

Here you can actually see how moist my cake is. I cut it too early just to make a picture for this blog. The cake was still warm and got squashed in the center.

(My husband quietly finished whole slice while I was uploading pictures).