What never fails to make me feel heiter? My sister-in-law’s lemon drizzle cake. We had it at our wedding, her wedding and at several other family celebrations. It felt like the best choice to celebrate two milestones earlier this month too: it was my 35th birthday and heiter turned 6, hooray!
After posting a photo of the cake on social media two weeks ago, many of you asked if I could share my version of the recipe with them so I thought I’d make a little blog post out of it. Hope you’ll find it useful!
Be heiter,
Katharina x
Ingredients for the cake mixture:
200g unsalted butter or a dairy-free/vegan alternative - make sure it’s soft but not runny
250g (caster) sugar
3 medium eggs, at room temperature, beaten - vegan alternative: 3 tbsp chia seeds plus 9 of water
finely grated zest of 2 medium unwaxed lemons
250g self-raising flour (if you can’t get hold of self-raising flour, use normal flour and add 2 tsp of baking soda or powder)
1/2 tsp baking powder
100ml (plant) milk, at room temperature
Ingredients for the original topping:
100g (caster) sugar
juice of 2 medium unwaxed lemons
finely grated zest of 1 medium unwaxed lemon
Ingredients for my cream cheese topping (see photo):
100g icing sugar
400g cream cheese (or a vegan alternative)
juice of 2 medium unwaxed lemons
optional: flowers or blossoms to decorate
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees/gas 4.
In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer, mix the soft butter, sugar, eggs (or the chia seed-water-mixture) and lemon zest.
Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl, then add the milk.
Beat with a wooden spoon, electric whisk or food mixer until all ingredients are thoroughly combined and smooth.
Transfer the mixture into a prepared square tin that is lined with baking paper or greased with oil or butter. Alternatively, you can use two round tins. Spread the mixture evenly. Bake in the oven until the cake is golden brown (for about 50-60min, with two round tins it might take less time).
Meanwhile, make the topping.
For the original topping, mix the sugar with the lemon juice and zest to make a runny glaze. As soon as the cake is done, remove it from the oven and stand the tin on a wire cooling rack. Prick the top of the cake with a cocktail stick and then quickly spoon the lemon topping over so that it trickles down into the holes. Leave to cool completely before removing the cake from the tin.
If you’d like to go for a cream cheese topping, I recommend leaving the cake out to cool over night. Remove the cake from the tin and it on a chopping board or cooling rack. Carefully (and evenly) pour the juice over the top of the cake so that it becomes more juicy and let it stand for a bit. In the meanwhile, mix the cheese (or vegan alternative) with the icing sugar. Before you serve the cake, add the cream cheese topping on top of your cake and spread evenly. If you used two round tins (rather than one square one), use some of the topping on one of the cakes and spread evenly. Sandwich the second cake on top and finish the now two layered cake with the rest of your topping. If you’d like, you can decorate your cake with blossoms or flowers.
Enjoy!
Words & image: Katharina Geissler-Evans, heiter magazine
