Cook with Jamie
My Nan's easy lemon drizzle cake
With the ultimate zingy icing
50 mins plus cooling time
Super easy
serves 8
About the recipe
If anything's worth taking a little tea break for, it's a wedge of this classic lemon drizzle cake.
Recipe From
Ingredients
CAKE
115g unsalted butter, softened
115g caster sugar
4 large free-range or organic eggs
180g ground almonds
30g poppy seeds
zest and juice of 2 lemons
125g self-raising flour, sifted
LEMON SYRUP
100g caster sugar
90g lemon juice
LEMON ICING
225g icing sugar
zest and juice of 1 lemon
Top Tip
The trick is to make the lemon icing as fresh and zingy as possible, so try and buy nice thick-skinned organic leafy lemons instead of the waxed and sprayed everyday ones.
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. Grease and line the bottom and sides of a 20cm springform cake tin with greaseproof paper.
- Using an electric whisk, beat the butter with the caster sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs one by one, beating each in well. Fold in your ground almonds, poppy seeds, the lemon zest and juice and the sifted flour. Spoon the mix into the prepared cake tin and bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes or until lightly golden. You can check to see if the cake is cooked by poking a cocktail stick right into the sponge. Remove it after 5 seconds and if it comes out clean the cake is cooked; if slightly sticky it needs a little longer, so put it back in the oven. Allow the cake to cool on a rack.
- Make your lemon syrup by heating the sugar and lemon juice in a pan until the sugar has dissolved. While your cake is still warm, make lots of little holes in the top with a cocktail stick and pour your syrup over.
- To make your icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add the lemon zest and juice, stirring until smooth. When your cake is almost cool, put it on a serving plate and pour the icing carefully over the top. If you pour it on to the middle of the cake, then let gravity disperse the icing down the sides, you get the ‘drizzle’ effect! Give it a helping hand with a spoon if you want.
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