There’s nothing fresher than a lemon drizzle cake, with a delicious tang balanced by the sweet cake. Mary’s traybake recipe uses hardly any ingredients and bakes in no time at all. Speaking on the recipe, Mary said: “If you ask anybody what their real favourite cake is, it’s nearly always lemon drizzle. It’s certainly mine.”
The baking queen has spent years developing her lemon drizzle cake recipe so it gives perfect results, and she’s been making this one for decades. The recipe notes on BBC Food said: “Mary’s lemon drizzle traybake cake has been a hit since the 1960s, and this is the recipe she is most asked for when stopped in the street.”
Ingredients:
For the cake:
225g baking spread or butter, at room temperature
225g caster sugar
275g self-raising flour
Two level teaspoons of baking powder
Four free-range eggs
Four tablespoons of milk
Two unwaxed lemons, finely grated zest only
One heaped tablespoon of very finely chopped lemon verbena, optional
For the glaze:
175g granulated sugar
Two lemons, juice only
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan and grease a 12×9-inch traybake tin with butter and line the base with baking paper.
Measure all of the ingredients into a large bowl and beat for two minutes using an electric mixer, or until well blended. Turn the mixture into the prepared tin and level the top.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the cake has shrunk a little from the sides of the tin and springs back when lightly touched with a fingertip in the centre of the cake.
Meanwhile, make the glaze. Mix the sugar with the lemon juice and stir to a runny consistency.
Leave the cake to cool for five minutes in the tin, then lift out, with the lining paper still attached, and place on a wire rack set over a tray.
Brush the glaze all over the surface of the warm cake and leave to set. Remove the lining paper and cut into slices to serve.
This cake will stay fresh in an airtight container for three to four days, but freezes extremely well.
