The first time I made this it was too sweet — this version is adjusted to be less so.
It also went wet in the middle while drying out at the edges when I tried to bake low and slow. The temperature below fixes that.
Ingredients
Cake
250g margarine or butter, softened
175g caster sugar
4 free-range eggs
250g self-raising flour
zest of 3 lemons
Icing
150g icing sugar
juice of 2 lemons
Method
Preheat the oven to 175°C for top-bottom heating, or 160°C fan. Prepare the rack in the lower third of the oven.
Grease and line a loaf tin.
Beat the margarine or butter, sugar and lemon zest together until fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time.
Fold in the flour until just incorporated. Don’t overmix.
Pour the batter into the lined tin and smooth the top.
Bake for 40–50 minutes, until a skewer into the centre comes out clean.
Let the cake cool in the tin on a wire rack.
Prepare the drizzle. We’re going for two mixtures, one thin and one thick.
Weigh all of the icing sugar into one bowl, and add lemon juice a quarter-teaspoon at a time (no more than ¾ tsp), mixing the sugar to a paste before thinning it to avoid clumps.
Split the paste into two small bowls. Keep adding lemon juice ¼ tsp at a time to each until one bowl is just dripping off the spoon, and the other is thin and runny. The first will decorate the top of the cake later.
While the cake is still warm in the tin (not piping hot), use a skewer to make multiple holes all over the top. Pour the thin icing over the holes to soak the cake.
Once the cake is fully cooled, remove it from the tin and lining. Sitting on a wire rack over a cleanable surface, pour the thicker, decorative icing over the top.
Let the icing set for a while before serving — tastes great with yoghurt.
