Lemon Drizzle Cake
Unsalted butter, superfine sugar and eggs come together in this vegetarian — 70 minutes, 7 steps, and the kind of result worth repeating. Scroll down for the ingredient checklist, a serving scaler and unit converter, and the method broken into 7 steps.
You'll mainly reach for oven. At medium difficulty across 7 steps, it's manageable with a little attention. As written, it's meat-free.
What you'll need
Pantry staples (you likely have these)
🔁 Unit converter
How to make it
- Preheat the oven to 180 C and grease and line a 900 g loaf tin with parchment paper.
- Cream the softened butter and superfine sugar together for 3 to 4 minutes until pale and fluffy, then beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a spoonful of the flour with each to prevent curdling.
- Fold in the remaining self-raising flour, baking powder and lemon zest, then loosen the batter with the milk until it drops easily from the spoon.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared tin, level the top, and bake for 45 to 50 minutes until risen, golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- While the cake bakes, stir the lemon juice and granulated sugar together to make a coarse, crunchy drizzle that does not fully dissolve.
- As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, prick the warm surface all over with a skewer and spoon the lemon-sugar drizzle evenly over the top so it soaks in, then leave the cake to cool in the tin.
- Once fully cool, mix the powdered sugar with the juice of half a lemon to a thick but pourable icing and drizzle it over the cake, letting it set before slicing.
You'll use: Oven
Ingredient substitutions
- Butter
- olive oil (¾ the amount) · coconut oil · margarine
- Eggs
- ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce (baking) · 1 tbsp ground flax + 3 tbsp water per egg
- Lemon
- lime · 1 tbsp white wine vinegar per lemon
- Self-raising Flour
- 1 cup plain flour + 1½ tsp baking powder + ¼ tsp salt
Tips & common questions
How long does Lemon Drizzle Cake take to make?
About 70 minutes from start to finish — an estimate based on the 7 steps and 11 ingredients. Times vary with your kitchen and how much prep you do ahead.
What can I use instead of butter?
Try olive oil (¾ the amount). See the substitutions section above for more swaps.
Can I scale this recipe up or down?
Yes — use the servings control above the ingredients and every quantity rescales automatically (fractions included). Cooking times stay roughly the same; very large batches may need a little longer.
Is Lemon Drizzle Cake vegetarian?
Its ingredients contain no meat or fish, so it's suitable for vegetarians. Check any cheeses for animal rennet if that matters to you.
Related recipes
Lemon Drizzle Cake is an original recipe developed in-house by Consomee. Photo: Coffee lemon drizzle cake Gibberd Garden Harlow Essex England 03 darker.jpg by Acabashi, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons. We add the serving scaler, ingredient tools, timing and structure on top — how we source recipes.