A moist, tangy lemon drizzle cake is one of my favourite things to bake. It’s super simple, there’s no need for fancy decoration, and it always tastes fantastic! This is probably the cake that we make the most.
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Gosh, I’m tired! Last week was the first week that husband had worked a full week since March. It’s also been the first full week of school runs, and Robyn has started school.
I’m also slightly heartbroken. I so don’t want Robyn to start school. She’s completely ready for this next adventure. I am not!
In our house, we deal with things like this with food. We celebrate with steaks, we find comfort in cake and fakeaways, and we fill boring afternoons with experimenting with new recipes and baking with the kids.
If anything, now that husband is no longer working as a chef (thanks COVID redundancy!) we’re cooking and baking more than ever. It’s nice.
At the end of our first week back in real life, nothing was ever going to beat an easy Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake.
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My Lemon Drizzle Cake recipe really is one of my favourites. I love the tanginess of the lemon; it complements a sweet sponge really well, you can even swap things around and make it with limes.
I love using the same recipe for a lemon traybake too!
How Do You Make a Moist Lemon Drizzle Cake?
The keys to making a moist cake of any flavour are really getting to know your own oven, avoiding over baking (so using what you know about your oven, and not following recipes and times to the letter), and weighing your ingredients.
My Lemon Drizzle loaf Cake recipe follows a simple pound cake recipe: 175g self-raising flour, 175g butter, 175g sugar, and, 3 eggs. I then add lemon juice and zest, without adding extra flour to compensate.
This means a slightly longer bake, but a super moist cake. Then, we need to look at how to make Lemon Drizzle Syrup to add to the cake to make it even moister!
The good news is, it couldn’t be easier.
To make your lemon cake super moist and tangy, stab it (while still warm) all over with a fork or skewer.
Then, mix 50g caster sugar with 50ml lemon juice in a pan, and heat up gently on the hob, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Don’t wait until it thickens, or it will harden on the top of the cake.
You want it still more watery than you might expect.
Pour this carefully over the top of your Easy Lemon Drizzle loaf cake.
Baking Lemon Drizzle Cake with Kids
I love baking with kids.
Even though mind don’t particularly like lemon drizzle, they love to help bake and give things a try.
If you are baking with kids, there’s plenty that they can do here to help. Robyn especially likes to sift the flour and crack the eggs. She’s got a little chair and apron and her own mixing spoon to help.
The only thing that they don’t really do is help me to mix the drizzle, because lemon syrup can get very hot.
Can You Use Lemon Flavouring in a Lemon Cake?
You could, yes.
I like to use fresh lemons in my recipe for Lemon Drizzle Sponge, but, if you haven’t got it, lemon juice or flavouring will do in a pinch.
If using juice, I recommend adding to taste, to get your lemon cake just right.
How to Make Lemon Drizzle Icing
My recipe for lemon icing is so simple! It can’t go wrong.
Once I’ve poured my lemon syrup over the cake, I leave it to fully cool (you can do this in the fridge if you are in a rush!)
Then, I mix about 50g icing sugar with the juice of half a lemon (approx. 2 tbsp) so that it’s a thick, but drizzable consistency.
I use a piping bag to roughly drizzle this over my cooled lemon drizzle sponge, but you could just spoon, or even poor it on.
Can You Add Buttercream to Lemon Drizzle Cake?
Yes!
When I make Lemon Drizzle Cupcakes I add lemon buttercream to the top, and when I make Lemon Traybake, I add a lemon cream cheese.
I still drizzle the sponge with lemon syrup. But then I leave that to cool and spread or pipe buttercream or cream cheese on to the top.
A Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake with Icing like this is just even more lemon.
Can You Make a Lemon Drizzle Sandwich Cake?
Sandwich cakes are fab if you’ve got a big thick sponge that needs something to break it up.
I often prefer loaf cakes because they don’t need anything more than the icing on the top. This Lemon Pound Cake Recipe is exceptionally moist, so you don’t really need anything to break up the sponge.
That said, there’s nothing to stop you from adding a middle if you want to.
Either bake this recipe divided into two tins (either loaf or round) and reduce the cooking time. Or, use a big cake sword (it’s how I like to think of it – affiliate link btw) or a very sharp knife to carefully slice your Lemon Drizzle Sponge Cake (it’s easier if you let it cool) in half.
Then spread the middle with either buttercream, cream or lemon curd (or a combination!) and sandwich the two halves together for a super Tangy lemon drizzle cake.
Can Lemon Drizzle Loaf be Frozen?
Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake recipes are awesome for freezing!
Even the icing would freeze really well, so you could finish this cake, leave it to cool and freeze.
You could either freeze your lemon drizzle loaf cake with icing whole wrapped tightly, or in a sealed tub (or both) or you could slice it and wrap and freeze the individual slices.
What Flavours Work Well with Lemon?
I love this Lemon Drizzle Cake exactly as it is! But, if you fancy a change, I always think a lemon drizzle cake works really well with added blueberries.
Raspberry, lime, and other berries are great too, and if you wanted to try a different icing, cream cheese could be amazing!
If you want to skip the lemon entirely, try my orange drizzle cake.
I honestly think this is the perfect lemon drizzle loaf cake recipe. It’s quick, easy, and pretty hard to get wrong!
Equipment You Need to Make a Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake
This is very much a one bowl lemon loaf cake, so you don’t need much. I use (all affiliate links):
- 2lb Loaf Tin
- Reusable Piping bag
- Mixing Bowl
- Small Saucepan
- Flour Sift
- Electric Hand Whisk (not essential but very useful to have!)
Troubleshooting
If your cake is crispy around the edges, you might have over-greased your tin. If it’s also crispy on top, your oven might be too high. Try turning it down 10 degrees, or covering your cake loosely with foil after the first 30 minutes
Sometimes cakes sink because the oven was too hot. They rise too quickly when they first go in and then have to fall. Cooling too quickly is another common cause. Leave your cake in the tin to cool completely if you can.
I typically bake in silicone tins, but some people find that this makes the cake sink, as silicone cools much faster, and doesn’t retain heat as well as tin. If your cakes are sinking you might want to swap to a metal tin.
Because I use silicone, this doesn’t happen. But, if you are baking in a tin, sometimes, they stick. Greasing the tin lightly with butter helps, but when I use tins, like for my brownies, I like to line them with reusable baking paper which makes them easier to lift and means they never stick.
If your sponge is dry, it might be overbaked. Try 5 minutes less next time.
Or, it might mean that your syrup isn’t penetrating the sponge enough. Try stabbing more holes, and stabbing deeper down, and make sure your syrup doesn’t thicken too much.
If your sponge is dense, it might because it has sunk as it has cooled. It could also be because you’ve used or too much lemon juice or sugar.
Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake
Ingredients
For the Lemon Drizzle Sponge:
- 175 g Butter or Margarine
- 175 g Caster Sugar
- 3 Large Eggs
- Juice and zest of 2 large Lemons
- 175 g Self-raising Flour
For the Lemon Syrup:
- 50 g Caster Sugar
- 50 ml Lemon Juice
For the Lemon Drizzle Icing:
- 50 g Icing Sugar
- 2 tbsp Lemon Juice
Instructions
For the Lemon Cake:
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (fan assisted).
- Grease or line a loaf tin.
- Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth (this takes a few minutes with an electric whisk).
- Add the eggs and mix in, one at a time.
- Grate in the lemon zest and squeeze in the juice.
- Mix together.
- Fold in the flour until the mixture is smooth and even.
- Pour into a loaf tin and bake for 40 minutes, checking with a skewer (aff link).
For the Syrup:
- While the cake is baking mix the caster sugar and lemon juice in a small pan, and heat on a hob, continually stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Stab your baked but still warm cake (left in the tin) all over with a fork or skewer and pour over the warm lemon syrup.
- Leave to cool completely in the tin.
For the Icing:
- Mix the icing sugar with a little lemon juice, adding more if necessary, to get a drizzlable but thick consistency.
- Remove the cake from the tin, and drizzle over the icing.
Video
Notes
- I use a silicon tin (affiliate link), which doesn’t need greasing or lining
- Leave your cake to cool in the tin before removing
- I use a piping bag (aff link)for my drizzle, but you can just spoon it on
Nutrition
Any nutritional information is given as a general guide only and may not be accurate. The information is provided using an online calculator and is specific to my ingredients. Please make your own calculations if you want precise information.
