Lemon Drizzle Loaf

At Uni I fell in love with the lemon drizzle muffins that were sold at the library cafeteria. They had a gooey lemony center and sugar crystals on top. Absolutely divine!!! The sad news is that they cost £1.50 for one! But they tasted so good..

Anyways, I was inspired to try and make my very own lemon drizzle loaf (without the gooey center) and for a first attempt I think I did pretty well, even if I do say so myself.

To make you will need:

• 175g Unsalted butter, softened, plus extra to grease
• 175g caster sugar 
• 4 medium eggs
• 3 lemons
• 125g self raising flour
• 50g ground almonds
• 75g sugar cubes

The steps are similar to making my Victoria sandwich, once the sugar and butter are whisked together add the finely grated zest of 2 lemons and juice of 1/2 a lemon.

Fold the flour and ground almonds into the butter mixture, spoon into the tin and bake for 40-50 mins.

Sugar Crystals

Put the sugar cubes into a small bowl (I used only 50g because I didn't want too much sugar) with the juice of 1 1/2 lemons and the pared zest of 1 lemon. Leave to soak for about 5mins and then use the back of a spoon to crush the cubes roughly. Once the cake is warm spread the sugar crystals across the cake.

P.S ... I didn't t use grease proof paper when I made this cake, instead I greased the tin. However, part of my cake got stuck to the tin, so I would definitely advice using grease proof paper just to avoid your cake splitting while attempting to get the cake out.

                                                                Enjoy