Lemon Drizzle Cake Recipe

This recipe was recommended to me by a friend. I've made it a couple of times now, with complete success!

Cake ingredients
4 oz softened butter
6 oz self raising flour with a sprinkle of salt
1 tsp baking powder
6 oz golden caster sugar (though normal caster sugar will do)
2 eggs
6 tbsp milk
Finely grated rind of one large lemon

Oven temp: - 180 degrees C, for about 30 minutes. For fan assisted ovens, drop the temp. by 20 degrees.

1) Mix together all the cake ingredients and beat until smooth. It helps here to have the softest butter you can. If you think it's a bit too hard, cream the sugar and butter together first before adding the rest of the ingredients to the bowl.

2) Put the batter into a greased and lined baking tin and put into the oven. Whilst the cake is baking, prepared the icings.

Icing ingredients
Juice of one large lemon
3 oz caster sugar (original recipe calls for 4 oz, but this is too sugary)

1) Beat together ingredients and check consistency. If it's too grainy, there's too much sugar so add more lemon juice. If it's too tart (taste it!) then add more sugar. This depends on the size of your lemon and the amount of juice you can get out of it. 

2) When the cake is cooked, before you remove it from the tin, get a skewer and make a few holes in the top of it. Then pour on the icing.

Optional secondary icing ingredients
The first time I made this cake, I made it in two halves and sandwiched it together with a simple lemon frosting. Unfortunately I don't have exact measurements because it's quite trial and error-y but here's a guess... You will probably need to adjust them!

225g icing sugar
75g softened butter
1 tbsp milk
3 tbsp lemon juice

1) Combine all the ingredients with a hand mixer. The icing should be stiff and taste lemony - if it's too runny, add more icing sugar. If it's too stiff add another 2 tbsp of milk and beat again. It gets better the longer you beat it. Ideally, you want to be able to drag a knife through it and the line to stay for about 10 seconds. 


2) Sandwich together the two sponges when cooled and enjoy!

Recipe credit: http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/lemon-drizzle-cake-765