![Classic White Cake](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/07/31/multimedia/ya-white-cake-vmbj/ya-white-cake-vmbj-mediumThreeByTwo440.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
Lemon Drizzle Cake
![Lemon Drizzle Cake](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/10/19/dining/19LEMON-DRIZZLE-CAKE2/19LEMON-DRIZZLE-CAKE2-articleLarge.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
- Total Time
- 45 minutes, plus cooling
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
Advertisement
Ingredients
- 1cup/225 grams butter (2 sticks), softened, more for greasing pan
- 2cups plus 3 tablespoons/275 grams all-purpose flour
- 5½teaspoons baking powder
- ¼teaspoon kosher salt
- Finely grated zest and juice of 2½ lemons
- 2¼cups/450 grams granulated sugar
- 4large eggs
- ¼cup/60 milliliters whole milk
Preparation
- Step 1
Heat oven to 325 degrees and place a rack in the center. Grease a 9-by-12-inch baking pan and line with parchment paper, allowing a 2-inch overhang on the long sides.
- Step 2
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest.
- Step 3
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together butter and half of the sugar (225 grams/1 cup plus 2 tablespoons) until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until incorporated, then beat in milk, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary (mixture will look curdled, and that’s O.K.). Mix in flour mixture until combined, then scrape into prepared baking pan, smoothing the top.
- Step 4
Bake until golden brown and springy, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes, then use the paper overhang to lift the cake out of the pan; transfer to wire rack set over a rimmed baking sheet and carefully remove paper.
- Step 5
While cake bakes, in a small bowl mix together remaining half of the sugar (225 grams/1 cup plus 2 tablespoons) and enough lemon juice to make a runny mixture. While cake is still warm, spoon the sugar mixture evenly over the top. (The cake has to be cooled slightly to prevent topping from melting, but warm enough that it soaks into the cake, leaving a crunchy sugar coat on top.) Let cool, then cut into squares.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
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.
Incredible taste and texture, easy to make, and great to travel with. A snacking cake! Made in 9x13” pan without issue. Greased the glass pan with butter and omitted parchment, kept the cake in there during the lemon/sugar drizzle, cut and served from that pan at a picnic. Well loved all around for its crunchy lemony sweetness atop a moist cake.
This recipe is very versatile - consider adding a soft fruit - blueberries, peaches, etc to top the batter before baking. It is quite nice with just lemon zest, no added lemon juice or sugar topping, then served with fresh berries.
Has anyone made this a day in advance? I want to make it for a Father's Day dinner on Sunday, but I would like to make it on Saturday.
My cake fell in the middle. I used a 9 x 13 Pyrex dish. I baked it for 40 minutes at 325°. I don’t know what I did wrong.
Do not sub a 9x9 pan. The result will be too thick. With the low baking temp and the time required to bake through, my result was throat-catchingly dry. No amount of glaze could fix it.
Heads up the sugar needs to be divided!
Sunk in the middle. What did I do wrong?
That happened to me, too. I think mine was too thick to bake through in the alloted time, so the center didn't set.
The cake was far too sweet. Next time I would use less sugar in the glaze, maybe 1/2 or 2/3 of a cup. Otherwise the cake was delicious, rose very well and was fluffy. It was done perfectly, golden brown in 35 minutes.
So good, use lots of zest
It would be really helpful to give the precise measurements for the lemon juice and zest. Thank you.
Would also appreciate understanding how to flip it over twice without breaking the cake!
I used the correct size pan and followed the directions carefully, but the cake fell in the middle which created a "swamp" for the drizzle. Very, very sweet. Will try a different recipe the next time.
This was simple and delicious and my final product looked exactly like the picture. I was rushed and didn't read the directions for the glaze quite right. I dumped in all of the remaining lemon juice when making the glaze. It was a simple fix; I just added sugar until the consistency matched the description (runny.) It was a close call when lifting it out of the pan, but I made it. When the cake was warm but not hot, I glazed it on rack over wax paper for easier clean up.
35 minutes was too long as it is a bit dry. Lovely lemon flavor makes it a great light dessert.
Cake is very good, skip the sugar on top. Too sweet!
Advertisement