If you’re a fan of sweet lemon treats (like me) you are going to love this Easy Lemon Cake with its tangy lemon drizzle topping!
I was looking through some old recipe books recently and I started drooling over this lemon cake. The book it comes from is called Fast & Simple (Parragon) and quite frankly that couldn’t be a better description of this recipe!
I have made this cake twice over the last week because I wanted to make sure that this recipe wasn’t too good to be true. I mean it is SO EASY! And as a consequence I have eaten way too much of this cake over the last few days! Can I have the excuse that it’s my birthday today? I’m going to use that as my excuse anyway!
The cake has a nice amount of lemon in it but it’s the lemon drizzle topping that makes it so irresistible. The topping is spooned over the hot lemon cake and as it cools it goes a bit crunchy! When you take a bit you get the sweetness of the cake and then the delicious lemon tang of the crunchy topping – yum!!
I have said that this is almost a one bowl recipe because all of the cake ingredients go into one bowl and they’re mixed together. You just need a second bowl to quickly mix up the lemon drizzle topping! So in my books this counts as a very easy recipe that is almost one bowl!
I have altered the recipe ever so slightly. I just tweaked the amounts in the ingredients so that I can include cup and gram measurements. One point that I must stress is that to get a golden crust on this lemon cake you must use a shallow baking pan.
The recipe calls for a 20cm (8 inch) square shallow baking pan. If your pan is the right size but has deep sides the cake will not brown very much during the baking time. Trust me I learned this the first time I made this cake. The cake still tasted fine though!
The next time I used a shallow rectangular tin that was just slightly bigger overall and the lemon cake browned off beautifully.
I really can’t recommend this cake enough. It is easy to make and so utterly delicious. You can eat it on its own or add a dollop of thick cream to make a really indulgent lemon dessert!
- 125g of softened butter
- ½ cup (120g) of caster sugar
- ¾ cup (115g) of self-raising flour
- 2 eggs
- finely grated rind and juice of ½ a large lemon
- ⅓ cup (80g) of granular sugar
- finely grated rind and juice of ½ a large lemon
- Line a 20 cm (8 inch) shallow square cake tin* with baking paper and preheat oven to 200 °C (400 °F).
- Combine the butter, caster sugar, flour, eggs, lemon rind, and lemon juice in a large mixing bowl.
- Beat with an electric hand mixer for 1 -2 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides half way through (mixture will be thick and creamy).
- Spoon mixture into prepared baking tin and smooth the top.
- Bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
- While cake is baking make the topping by combining the sugar, lemon rind, and lemon juice in a small bowl and set aside.
- After removing the cake from the oven, and while the cake is still hot, use a toothpick to make holes all over the top of the cake.
- Spoon the lemon topping over the hot cake and then allow the cake to cool completely in the tin.
- Once completely cooled serve on its own or with some thick cream.
Hi, I'm Kaylene, and I'm a keen gardener,budding baker and wannabe DIYer!
the cake look very good i will try it
It is delicious Lennon, I hope you enjoy it!