Lemon Drizzle Cake

Recipe from Mary Berry

Adapted by Melissa Clark

Lemon Drizzle Cake
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times
Total Time
45 minutes, plus cooling
Rating
4(1,630)
Comments
Read comments

This light and moist lemon poundcake has a crunchy sugar glaze that crystallizes on top, giving a contrasting texture to the soft crumb underneath. It’s an easy-to-make, crowd-pleasing cake that’s excellent on its own but takes well to embellishments. A scoop of ice cream or sorbet, fruit compote and-or lemon curd are all wonderful alongside. —Melissa Clark

Featured in: ‘The Great British Bake Off’ Changes the Way the British Bake

  • or to save this recipe.

  • Subscriber benefit: Give recipes to anyone

    As a subscriber, you have 10 gift recipes to give each month. Anyone can view them - even nonsubscribers. Learn more.

    Subscribe

  • Share this recipe

  • Print this recipe

    or to print this recipe.

Advertisement

Ingredients

Yield:24 servings
  • 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
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (24 servings)

236 calories; 9 grams fat; 5 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 37 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram dietary fiber; 19 grams sugars; 4 grams protein; 118 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

Powered by

Preparation

  1. 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.

  2. Step 2

    In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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

Leave a Private Comment on this recipe and see it here.

Ratings

4 out of 5
1,630 user ratings
Your rating

or to rate this recipe.

Have you cooked this?

or to mark this recipe as cooked.

Comments

elle

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.

Leobot

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.

Paul

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.

Liz in Tacoma, WA

Butter, lemon, sugar, flour, eggs. What's not to love? I made two batches today, because I messed up the first and left out an egg. It gave me a chance to taste test and adjust for the second batch. I added zest, of 3 lemons plus a tsp. or so of vanilla, and the right number of eggs. These were baked in unlined mini muffin tins for a tea, so I adjusted the bake time to about 20-25 minutes. One batch I glazed the bottoms, the second batch I glazed the tops. Both are yum.

Ann

This was a home run! I decided to make two 9x9 round cakes instead of a 9x13 and that worked great. I baked them for 30 minutes, but I think that was a bit too long — next time I'll check after 20 minutes and probably land at 25 minutes. And for these two cakes, I might increase the topping quantity a bit — it was almost ample, but the edges got shortchanged. Once the topping set, I dusted the tops with a bit of powdered sugar to make it look pretty. Lovely! Will definitely make again!

Iteach2

Very lightly lemon flavor in cake; topping is sugary. Rather ordinary. There are better lemon cake recipes.

Private comments are only visible to you.

Credits

Adapted from Mary Berry

Recipe Tags

or to save this recipe.