Sweet & tangy lemon drizzle cake
Baking was my least favourite subject back in college. (I studied commercial cookery along with the diploma of hospitality management) I can still vividly remember the reaction of lecturers when they found out about me failing the subject. 'How come you are good at everything else but not baking?' sigh.
Anyway, many years have passed by and I have slowly started to bake again and slowly become more and more confident. The reason why I started to enjoy baking is because it is surprisingly therapeutic. I even googled if baking is good for your mental health. And the answer is YES! The smell of cake and cookies being baked in oven fills up your kitchen and even the entire house make me so happy. How about when I get great feedback from my family and friends? It just boosts my confidence level! It took me ages to get to this stage though. If you are new to baking, I suggest you to try something very easy and simple such as scones or sugar cookies(I will post these in the future) then gradually move on to more difficult and complicated ones.
Ingredients
-Self raising flour 180g
-White granulated sugar 180g
-Bi-carb soda 1/2 teaspoon
-2 Eggs
-Unsalted butter(room temperature) 125g
-Unwaxed lemon 3 (use both zest and juice)
-Icing sugar about half to 1 cup *I will explain later in recipe
-Extra butter/margarine to spread inside the cake tin(so cake doesn't stick to the tin!)
Recipe
- Weigh everything and gather all ingredients.
- Preheat oven to 175degree(celcius).
- In a big bowl, beat softened butter and sugar then add eggs one by one.
- Pour sifted flour and bi-carb soda into the bowl then mix gently.
- Grate 1 lemon zest(you can grate 2 or even 3 if you like lemon) and add it to the bowl.
- spread thin layer of butter or margarine inside of cake/loaf tin then line it with grease proof paper.
- Pour the batch into a round cake tin or use loaf tin like I did.
- Put the tin in the middle shelf and bake it for 30minutes then check if the cake is done by inserting a skewer. If the skewer comes out clean, it means it's done. If not, check every 5-10minutes. It should be golden brown of top when it's done.
- Whilst the cake is being baked, squeeze the juice of 3 lemons and add icing sugar little by little. Tasted the juice if it is sweet enough. If it's too sour, add more icing sugar. It's all upto personal taste, that's why I didn't write down the exact amount of icing sugar in the ingredients part(now you know!).
Now, here is the fun part!(the recipe continues!)
Last, poke the beautifully baked cake with a skewer like the photo shown above. Then pour the juice and icing sugar mix slowly on top of the cake. Try to distribute the juice evenly. The cake should absorb the juice and become very moist.
You can just finish it by dusting the cake with icing sugar but if you want the even surface to go on top, just simply flip the cake gently then finish it with icing sugar(use sieve).
That's it! If you did everything right, your cake will be looking like the photo below.
You can keep it for 3-4day in an airtight container. But I personally think it tastes the best when it's freshly made.
Enjoy it with your favourite cup of tea. The tanginess of lemon seems to disappear as time goes by.
Let me know if you have any questions. Hope this recipe helped you and inspired you.
Happy new year and happy baking everybody!
xx, the wife