Never baked Lemon Drizzle before yesterday  but a dear colleague is moving on to new challenges and this cake is her favorite.  It’s taken me a while to find the elusive 30 x 23 cms tray that Mary Berry uses  (if you follow me on twitter you may have caught my grumblings).   I was tempted to pimp this but i’m playing safe today.

So what next…

Grease and line your  30 x 23 cms tin with baking parchment/paper (remember, if you use larger tin you wont get the same rise).  Line your tin I and heat your oven to 140°c (fan) or Gas mark 3 then weigh out and prepare your ingredients but hold on for the crunchy topping.

You will need

• 225g Softened Butter
• 225g caster sugar
• 275g Self-raising flour
• 2 level teaspoons baking powder
• 4 large eggs
• 4 tablespoons of milk
• finely grated rind/zest of 2 lemons

For the crunchy topping you will need

• 175g granulated sugar (beware not to use a finer grade or you will not get the crunch)
• Juice of 2 lemons (beware to to use large lemons – read on to see why)

1. Measure the butter, caster sugar, SR flour, baking powder,eggs, milk and lemon zest/rind into your bowl and beat until well blended.  Remember your butter must be soft to touch before your start this process.
   
2. Turn your mixture into the greased/lined tray and gently level
3. Place the tray in the oven on a middle shelf for 35-40 minutes – or until the cake has pulled back from the sides of the tin and if you gently press the middle if fingertips you see it spring back
4. Leave the bake in the tin to cool for five minutes.
5. When times up, turn it out on a cooling rack and carefully peel the parchment/paper from the base and leave to cool further
6. Make your crunchy topping by mixing the granulated sugar and lemon juice in a small bowl to give a runny mixture
7. Spoon this over the cake while it is still warm
8. Cut into squares once cold.

Lessons learnt

My oven was slightly too hot – school girl error – always check your temperature or expect that doming.

The lemons, despite being fabulously juicy, produced a lot of juice which is never a bad thing.   However  I think the amount of juice they produced took the crunch from the topping – too much juice to sugar.  It could also have been that the bake was too warm and melting the sugar .  What I do know is that baking is a learning curve and next time I will measure juice to try and find that perfect mix and use a more averaged size lemon.  In the meantime a cheats sprinkle of granulated the morning after gave these the crunch they deserved.

Every cloud has a silver lining as these lemons gave me an incredibly zest and moist lemon drizzle and I look forward to baking this again but next time with some savory thyme.

Hope you like this and my pictures and if you try this with a twist then please share your thoughts.

If you like my blog why not follow me on Twitter or Instagram.

Louise x

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