Luscious Lemon Drizzle Cake

When I saw the Delicious Alchemy girls at the Allergy and Free From Show I picked up some vanilla sponge mix, as I think I have tried most DA mixes but this one!

It was a friend’s birthday celebrations on Saturday and so I decided to make a well loved favourite of most people I know – Lemon Drizzle Cake.

The instructions for my drizzle cake aren’t that far off those on the packet but I added the zest and juice of a whole lemon and only 10ml of water and made a glaze for the top.

Ingredients:

1x Delicious Alchemy Vanilla Sponge mix

180 g of unsalted butter (ouch…I know!)

3 eggs (or two eggs and one whipped egg white to make the cake fluffier)

Juice of 1 whole lemon

Zest of 1 whole lemon

For the Glaze:

Juice of 1 whole lemon

4 tablespoons of icing sugar

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (160 for fan assisted)

Grease a large round cake tin (20 cm or 8 inches) with butter

Put the cake mix, soft butter and eggs into a stand mixer and mix on high for 15 seconds, scrape down the size. Add the lemon juice and 10 ml of water and then whisk for a further 15 seconds until a batter consistency.

Spread the mixture into the cake tin. With a pallet knife scrape around the outside of the mixture (closest to the tin as possible) before putting it in the oven – this will stop it from sticking to the sides.

Cook for 35 minutes and skewer to test it has cooked through.

If not, place back in the oven for 5 more minutes.

While the cake is cooking, to make the glaze you need to mix the juice of a whole lemon with 4 tablespoons of sieved icing sugar ( we don’t want any lumps and bumps) until you get a syrup consistency.

Remove the cake from the oven and cool for 5 minutes.

After the cake has cooled, but is still warm, pierce the surface a few times with a skewer and smother the glaze over the top. The glaze will seep through the holes and inject a bit of zing into the cake.

You can then either top the cake with a lemon cream (using lemon juice, icing sugar and cream whipped together) or save a few calories and just serve it with the glaze.