Lemon Drizzle Cake

It would be more helpful to provide the volume of lemon juice and zest, rather than the arbitrary instruction, "2 1/2 lemons." Right now, the lemons in my market are huge, with a small amount of pulp for juicing. So I'll have a great quantity of zest with not much juice.

Melissa -- would you kindly adjust the recipe to reflect the amounts of lemon j. and zest? Thanks so much.

Would it be a disaster to use a 9x13 pan? I've never seen a 9x12 in person, and there are only a handful on Amazon that I saw. But I do have 9x13s galore.

A 9x12 would be a quarter-sheet pan with 1-inch sides. The low sides are key to getting the cake out in one piece as described. Alternatively, you could glaze the cake right in the deep 9x13 and serve it out of the pan, too.

This is correct. Mary Berry, from whom this recipe was adapted, uses self-rising flour (which contains baking powder). Melissa converted this one to AP flour, so she had to add additional baking powder. It seems like a lot, but it works!

I made a half recipe in a 8in. round cake pan and everyone loved it. It's very easy to make, and has a pleasant, non-soggy texture and balanced flavor.

Lemon drizzle or glaze is especially good on homemade gingerbread. Include some zest in the glaze. You can substitute powdered sugar for regular sugar if you like. If the cake was too warm when you applied the drizzle and the drizzle sank into the cake, let the cake cool for an hour or two and apply another coating. So much the better -- moist glaze inside and a coating outside.

Changing pan size is ok. You just need to adjust baking time as the batter will be spread across more pan surface. The slightly larger pan means less baking time. Start checking the cake at 20-25 mins. This cake bakes at 325, which is my preferred temp for most cakes.

For glass or dark metal cake pans, the general approach is to reduce the oven temperature by 25 degrees. Glass and dark metal will bake the outer sides too fast at higher temps while the nterior will be under baked.

Before spooning the sugar/lemon mixture over the cake, I use a fine skewer to puncture the surface of the cake all over, so that the syrup can soak in just a little bit.

HAs anyone tried this? The amount of baking powder, 5 1/2 teaspoons, seems like a lot for 2 cups of flour.

This is positively scrumptious. And 24 servings? Forget it. Two people could easily devour the entire thing in a sitting or two. BTW, I ran out of white granulated sugar and used raw (turbinado) for part of the topping. Terrific. And don't sweat the pan size--just use something similar in dimensions and watch the baking time.

Here is the site for Mary's own recipe. Note that like most British bakers, she uses self-rising flour. http://www.maryberry.co.uk/recipes/baking/lemon-drizzle-traybake

9 x 9 pan worked perfectly.

If it's not advisable, create a 9x12 by lining the pan the long way first with heavy duty foil, turning it up and folding the edge over to create a pan one inch shorter than the metal one. Then line the foil with the greased parchment and proceed as directed.

This is a great recipe! I added some earl grey to it because I love the lemon+tea combination. I brewed 6 bags of tea in 1/2 cup of milk, and used 1/4 cup of this for the recipe. I also crushed a bag of earl grey and added it to the dry ingredients. You get tiny specks of tea in the end which I like.

Great result! Added half a cup of almond meal and halved the sugar both in the batter and glazing and turned out sweet enough for the family.