Easy lemon drizzle cake
- Prepare
- less than 30 mins
- Cook
- 30 mins to 1 hour
- Serve
- Serves 8–10
This wonderfully simple lemon drizzle cake recipe is super-quick to prepare and perfect for weekend baking with the kids. This recipe makes a lemon drizzle loaf, but if you want to make a cake in a different shape, try our cake calculator.
By Becca Spry
Ingredients
- 225g/8oz unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
- 225g/8oz caster sugar
- 4 free-range eggs
- 225g/8oz self-raising flour
- 1 unwaxed lemon, zest and juice (see recipe tip)
- 85g/3oz icing sugar or caster sugar
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Grease a 900g/2lb loaf tin with a little butter and line with baking paper.
Tip the remaining butter and the caster sugar into a food processor and blend for a few seconds. Add the eggs one at a time, blending after each addition. Add the flour and lemon zest and blend until smooth.
Pour the cake mixture into the lined baking tin, flatten the top with the back of a spoon and bake for 50–55 minutes.
Meanwhile, stir together the lemon juice and icing sugar. When the cake has cooled a little, poke holes in the top using a skewer, chopstick or a piece of raw spaghetti. Drizzle over the icing, set aside for a few minutes to cool, and serve.
Recipe tips
To freeze the lemon drizzle cake, make the cake up to step 3 and allow the cake to cool completely. Wrap in a double layer of clingfilm and freeze for up to 3 months. Defrost at room temperature, wrapped, for 3 hours. Continue with the recipe and then pour the lemon drizzle icing over the defrosted cake before serving.
If you don't have a food processor you can make the cake by hand or using an electric mixer. It will just take a bit longer.
If your lemon is on the small side or it's quite old, you might want to use the zest of two lemons. The zest of older lemons looses flavour, which isn't great if you like your drizzle cakes with a strong lemon taste (they are still safe to use though). The recipe was written using a large single lemon.
The drizzle is made with icing sugar but you can swap in caster sugar or even granulated sugar if you prefer. Use the same weight for all.
Lemon drizzle cake will keep for up to 5 days in an air-tight tin, but it's best eaten when fresh. Keep it at room temperature, fridges tend to dry cakes out.
