Back to Baking

When I was much younger, much, much younger I used to do loads of baking, every weekend Mum would let me make some sort of cake on a Saturday.  That slowly died a death as Saturday afternoon activities went more towards hanging round town and then developed into getting ready for a night on the town and now it's all come full circle.

One of my new years resolutions was to get better at baking.  It's something I lost confidence in, you have to follow a recipe and just hope for the best, I have no idea from looking at a recipe whether it will work or not, whereas with savoury/non baking recipes I have much more idea how the end result will be and more often than not will change the recipe to steer it the way I want it.  This has not been helped by all the Nigella baking disasters - the Christmas cake cupcake things, the hot cross buns both of which could have been used as weapons, there were others too.

Last months Good Food magazine had a baking section in it amongst which was a recipe for lemon drizzle cake, if the measure of a recipes success is how many times it gets repeated the fact we are now on the 4th lemon drizzle cake may give some idea!  It was only on making the last one that I realised it was a Mary Berry recipe.

For the cake

225g butter
225g caster sugar
275g self raising flour
2tsp baking powder
4 eggs
4 tbsp milk
Zest of 2 lemons

For the crunchy topping
Juice of 2 lemons
175g granulated sugar


Cut a rectangle of non-stick baking parchment to fit the base and sides of a 30 x 23 x 4 cm roasting tin. I use a 9 inch square tin Grease the tin and line with the paper, pushing it neatly into the corners of the tin. Preheat the oven to 160C/gas 2. 140 fan


2. Measure all the ingredients for the tray bake into a large bowl and beat well for about 2 minutes, until well blended.  This scares me, I blend the butter and sugar first, mix the milk with the eggs, beat in some egg with a spoonfull of flour, till it's all in then add the lemon zest.

3. Turn the mixture into the prepared tin, scraping the sides of the bowl with a plastic spatula to remove all of the mixture. Level the top gently with the back of the spatula.

4. Bake in the middle of the oven for about 35-40 minutes, or until the cake springs back when lightly pressed and is beginning to shrink away from the sides of the tin.  Due to the dimensions of my tin the cake is a bit thicker so I give it 40-45 mins.

5. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for a few minutes then lift it out of the tin while still in its lining paper. Carefully remove the paper and put the tray bake onto a wire rack placed over a tray.

6. To make the crunchy topping, mix the lemon juice and granulated sugar in a small bowl to give a runny consistency. Spoon this mixture evenly over the tray bake whilst it is still just warm. Cut into squares when cold and store in an airtight tin.