How to Bake a Lemon Drizzle Cake

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A Lemon Drizzle Cake is a beautiful summertime delight, packed with zesty citrusy goodness, it’s the ultimate partner to an afternoon tea on a warm blissful day. Here at the TPC Ltd, we wanted to give you a step by step guide and some unmissable tips so that you can create this classic from the comfort of your home. With the Great British Bake Off only around the corner, it’s time to grab an apron and bake something that Mary Berry would be proud of.

Ingredients

3 Unwaxed Lemons

320g Caster Sugar

3 Eggs

350 g of Plain Flour

1 Teaspoon Salt

1 ½ Teaspoons Baking Powder

250 ml Whole Milk

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

200 g unsalted butter

Lemon Syrup:

Freshly squeezed juice and zest of 1 lemon

50 g Caster Sugar

100 ml water

Utensils

Loaf Tin 23 x 13 cm

2lb Cake Liner

Zester

Mixing Bowl x2

Kitchen Scales 

Sieve

Stand Mixer/Hand Mixer/Mixer

Saucepan x2

Measuring Jug

Cup

Spatula

Bowl x2

Before we get started on the baking, we highly recommend that you gather up the utensils and ingredients prior and have them prepared ready for use.

1. Zesting the lemon

-Grab two of the unwaxed lemons at your disposal and carefully scrape the zest off the outer layer of the lemons using the zester, placing the zest into the mixer bowl directly underneath

Utensils/Ingredients:

Mixing Bowl

Zester

Lemon

2. Making the Mix

-Next up, crack your 3 eggs into a cup, this is so you can pick out any of the shell before it goes into zest filled mixing bowl. When cracked, chuck the contents into the mixing bowl.

-Bring out a seperate bowl and place that on a measuring scale, pour 320g of caster sugar into the bowl, making sure you are as close to that number as possible to help with optimum performance.

-Then hold a sieve over the mixing bowl and pouring in your caster sugar so that there are no lumps going into the mixture. Then start to mix these ingredients together using your mixing device or by hand until it is well mixed. So that we don’t confuse the different mixes as we go through the process, we are going to call this the loaf mix.

(If using a stand or hand mixer we recommend that you mix at a medium speed setting to avoid ingredients decorating your kitchen.)

-When fully mixed, get a knife and scrape of any excess mixture from the whisk/K-Beater and put it back into the main mixture, this is too avoid any juicy flavours being left out.

Utensils/Ingredients:

3 eggs

320g Caster Sugar

Cup

Bowl

Mixing Bowl (with lemon Zest)

Mixer

Sieve

3. Flour Time

-At this stage, preheat your oven at 170°C. Grab another bowl, place it on the measuring scales and pour 340g of flour into the bowl remembering to get it as close to the recommended measurement as possible.

-Once measured, bring out the other mixing bowl, place it on your kitchen counter and pour the flour through the sieve into the mixing bowl. After, get 1 teaspoon of salt and add it to the flour mixing bowl, followed by 1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder. Make sure the teaspoons are level to maintain optimum taste.

-Once ingredients are in the bowl, mix the contents together, making sure all is incorporated and leave that to one side, we”ll come back to that later.

Utensils/Ingredients:

340 g Flour

Sieve

1 Teaspoon of salt

1 ½ Teaspoon Baking powder

Mixing bowl

Bowl

4. Butter-Up

-Collect one of your saucepans and place it on a measuring scale, weighing out 200g of unsalted butter. A tip is to cut the butter up into small sections to speed up the melting process.

-Once measured, place the saucepan on top of a cooking hob and cook the butter at a low heat. Cook the butter until butter is liquidised, making sure there are no lumps in the saucepan.

-Once fully melted, turn off the hob and a place the saucepan in a spot to cool. We suggest you position the saucepan by a window as it allows for a gradual breeze to cool down the butter.

-You want to wait for the temperature to get to the point where the butter is lukewarm. This is because if the temperature is too warm, it can risk cooking the egg when mixing later on, which will limit the quality of the mixture.

Utensils/Ingredients:

200g Unsalted Butter

Saucepan

Measuring Scale

5. Milk-Lovin

-Bring out your measuring jug and pour out 250ml of full fat milk into the jug, making sure you get as close to the mark as possible. Well that was easy!

Utensils/Ingredients:

Measuring Jug

250ml Full fat milk

6. Lemon Syrup

-Whilst the butter is still cooling down, it will be a good time to create the syrup that we will drizzle on top of the cake. Firstly, grab the second of the saucepans that you have prepared prior.

-Place the saucepan on a measuring scale and carefully pour out 50 g of Caster Sugar into that saucepan.

-In addition, grab the zester and the last unwaxed lemon, zest the lemon over the saucepan allowing the zest to drop into that mixture. To make sure you get those citrusy flavours incorporated into the cake, cut the unwaxed lemon in half and using one half, squeeze the juices of that section in that mixture.

-After, collect your 100 ml of water and add that to the saucepan, thoroughly stir  mixture for a few minutes then leave that saucepan to the side.

Utensils/Ingredients:

Second Saucepan

5O g Caster Sugar

1 Unwaxed Lemon

100 ml water

Zester

Measuring Scales

7. All coming together

-Next up, is where we put it all together. Pour out 250 ml of whole fat milk into a measuring jug and grab your flour mix. For this part we are going to alternate the pouring into 3 stages. If you are using a stand or hand mixer, start the machine back up and have the setting on a low speed, if you are mixing by hand, just give the loaf mix a little stir for a minute.

-In the first stage you want to pour roughly a third of the flour mix into the loaf mix and let it mix for a minute, then pour a third of the milk into the loaf mix and let that mix for a minute (or if mixing by hand, moderately mix for 90 secs). You then want to repeat this process another two times: 1 third flour, 1 third milk and repeat one more time after that.

Utensils/Ingredients:

Flour Mixture

250 Ml of Whole fat milk

Spatula

Loaf Mixture

Mixers

8. Butter cup 2

-Once the flour and milk are incorporated in the loaf mix, bring the mixer back to a low speed.

-Grab your melted butter in the saucepan making sure that it is at a lukewarm temperature and start to gradually pour the butter into the loaf mix.

-Make sure all of the melted butter makes it in the loaf mix, we wouldn’t want any of it going to waste.

Utensils/Ingredients:

Loaf Mixture

Melted Butter in Saucepan

9. Into the fire

-Place your cake tin on the kitchen counter with the cake liner inside it. Slowly pour the loaf mix into the cake liner, whilst pouring you should be able to see an even consistency in the spreading out in the liner.

-With all the mixture poured out into the liner, it should almost fill up right to the top, leaving a few cm from the very top. Once all the mixture is poured, it’s time for the anxious wait. Stick the cake tin in your preheated oven for 75 mins.

Utensils/Ingredients:

Cake Tin

Cake Liner

Loaf Mix

10. Remember me

-After sticking the mixture in the oven and taking a little break, there is just one more little element that we need to add to this wonderful creation you have made.

-Remember that forgotten syrup you made, well this is the missing piece of the puzzle.

-With about 20 minutes to go before the cake is ready, get the syrup and place on a hob and cook it at a low heat until you bring the mixture to a boil. Once boiling, cook at a higher heat until the syrup is liquidised.

-With about 5 minutes to go, get a knife or temperature checker, stick it in the centre of the loaf and right to the bottom, seeing whether the utensil has any cake stuck to it. If not then it’s pretty much done but if it does, you might want to leave it in the oven for a little longer, regularly checking every 5 minutes .

Utensils/Ingredients

Syrup Mix

Knife/ Temperature checker

Lemon Drizzle Loaf

11. The Magic Moment

-Once the cake is ready after 75 minutes, take it out the oven and place on the counter. Get the liquidised drizzle syrup and slowly pour the syrup across the top of the loaf to give it that extra zing.

-Wait for a few minutes to let the mixture cool and the drizzle juices to do its magic. Then grab a knife, cutting the loaf into 8-10 evenly cut slices.

-And there you go, your lemon drizzle cake is ready to be indulged.

Utensils/Ingredients:

Lemon Drizzle Loaf

Drizzle Syrup

We hope that you try to give this classic a whirl and would love to see the beautiful creations that you make. Send in a photo of the finished product to [email protected]. The best 2 will be uploaded to our social media pages.
Good Luck !

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