Lemon Drizzle Cake

I am posting two recipes here. One is your classic crunchy sugar topped light sponge made with wheat flour and the other is a gluten free lemon drizzle cake with an interesting ingredient. The wheat sponge is a slightly adapted version of Mary Berry's lemon drizzle from her book Ultimate Cakes which is an excellent book if you want to start baking classic teatime cakes. You can buy the book from Amazon or most book stores seem to stock her as she is such a prolific writer not to mention domestic godess. If I ever want to bake a cake I look up her recipe first.

The gluten free recipe comes from BBC GoodFood and despite having mashed potatoes in it makes a really wonderful cake. It is dense and moist and could be served as a dessert. If you prefer to follow the recipe on the bbc the link is here although in my recipe I use more lemons as a prefer a zestier cake. The photos here are of the wheat flour lemon cake but the link has an accurate photo of what the gluten free cake looks like. My advice with this cake is to not tell people what the unusual ingredient is until after they have tasted it.

Both of these recipes make a pretty lemony cake so reduce the lemon juice in the drizzle if you prefer a less zesty cake.  

Classic Wheat Flour Lemon Drizzle
Vegetarian, Dairy free

Ingredients

225g Dairy-free margarine (or unsalted butter if can have dairy)

175g Caster sugar

225g Self raising flour

2 tsp Baking powder

4 eggs

3 tbsp soya milk (or cows' milk if can have dairy)

Zest of 2 lemons

1tbsp Lemon juice 

for the drizzle topping:

Juice of 2-3 lemons

75-100g Brown granulated sugar

Method

•  Preheat the oven to 180 degrees/gas mark 4. 
• Grease and line a deep 20cm/8 inch cake tin
• Add the margarine and sugar into a bowl and beat until light and fluffy. 
• Add the eggs and milk and stir. 
• Next add the flour and baking powder and lemon juice & zest and mix.
• Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake in the oven for around 30-40 mins. 
• Whilst the cake is cooking mix the drizzle ingredients together in a bowl
• When the cake is cooked it should be a light golden brown, have shrunk from the side slightly and a sharp knife inserted into the middle should come away clean. 
• Allow to cool in the tin for 5-10mins then pour over the drizzle and allow to cool completely before serving. 
 

Gluten Free Lemon Drizzle Cake 
Vegetarian, Gluten free, Dairy free

Ingredients
200g Dairy-free margarine (or unsalted butter if can have dairy)
200g Sugar
4 Eggs
175g Ground almonds
250g Cold potato (well mashed or passed through a potato ricer)
2 tsp Gluten free baking powder
Zest 3 lemons

Juice of 1 lemon 

for the drizzle topping:

Juice of 2 lemons

75-100g Brown granulated sugar

Method

•  Preheat the oven to 180 degrees/gas mark 4. 
• Grease and line a deep 20cm/8 inch cake tin
• Add the margarine and sugar into a bowl and beat until light and fluffy. 
• Add the eggs and stir in.
• Next fold in the ground almonds, baking powder, potatoes and lemon zest and juice. 
• Mix to well combined and pour into the cake tin and bake in the oven for around 40-45mins. 
• Whilst the cake is cooking mix the drizzle ingredients together in a bowl 
• The cake will be golden brown and a sharp knife or skewer inserted into the middle should come away clean. 
• Allow to cool in the tin for 5-10mins then pour over the drizzle and allow to cool completely before serving.