Cheap vs steep Lemon Drizzle Cake

by Barry Lewis

Bake time
55 mins

Ingredients

225g unsalted butter, softened

225g caster sugar

4 eggs

225g self-raising flour

1 lemon, zested

For the drizzle topping

1½ lemons, juiced

85g caster sugar

In this cheap vs steep we compare a lemon drizzle cake – the same ingredients and method, but from polar ends of the supermarket budget. Will goat butter, organic flour and gigantic neon orange free range eggs win? Find out!

Here’s how to make the lemon drizzle cake, however you want to do it!

Pre-heat your oven to 180C/160 fan/gas 4/350f. Grab a bowl and beat together the butter and sugar until it goes creamy and pale in colour, using an electric whisk this should take a good few minutes. Using the 4 eggs, keep whisking, but add one egg to the mix, whisk through until combined, then slowly add the remaining one at a time.

Add the flour and lemon zest, whisking again until smooth and a consistent batter is formed. You can use lemon extract here if you wish, but it’s not needed, the sponge has a delicate taste of lemon.

Tip into a loaf tin, lined with baking parchment and make sure the top is even and smooth. Bake for 50 minutes, if you think it’s done, please test with a bamboo skewer as if it is still gooey (common in lemon drizzle cakes) it’ll need longer. So wrap in tin foil and bake in 5 minutes batches, checking as you go and repeating in 5 minute bakes covered until it comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the cake tin. But whilst it is, use the bamboo skewer to make holes in the cake all along the top.  In a bowl whisk together the lemon juice and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Pour this mix over the cake and let it settle and cool with the cake still in it’s tin fully.

Once the cake is cooled, remove from the tin and slice into 10 pieces (or less if hungry!)….. enjoy the sugary lemon crunch of the drizzle and whether you go cheap, steep or both, this one is a real winner. For this recipe …. cake is cake and compared to other cheap vs steep videos, you’ll hopefully enjoy either!