The Perfect Syrupy Lemon Drizzle Cake Recipe

On days when rain is bucketing down so hard that you'd get drenched walking between your front door and your car, you may feel that the last thing you want to do is leave the house. On days like these I often feel restless, wandering around the house wondering what to do with myself. Then, one particularly wet day I discovered the perfect answer. Baking.

Baking can keep me occupied for hours. The process of deciding what to make, picking out your ingredients, combining them in just the right quantities and then watching them cook in the oven is incredibly therapeutic and perfect for a day when really, you can't do all that much.

Over the many rainy days we have in Britain, I've perfected one recipe: my (if I do say myself) amazing lemon drizzle cake. Today, I thought I'd share it with you.

You will need:
175g of sugar
175g of self raising flour
175g of butter
3 eggs
2 lemons
a teaspoon of baking powder

This recipe is very simple and rather quick to make. Start by preheating your oven to 170 degrees centigrade. Then grate a little of the lemon peel off one of the lemons. (I tend to use a 'lemon zester' as you get lovely thin ribbons of peel.) Be careful only to use the yellow peel- the white pith can be quite bitter. Next, squeeze the juice out of one and a half of the lemons. If you heat them for 30 seconds in the microwave first, you'll get more juice out. Bung your peel and your juice into a large mixing bowl.

After this, simply tip in the rest of your ingredients and mix until you have a smooth creamy mixture. Pour your mixture into your well greased baking tins so they fill about half of the tin. Personally, I tend to use four mini loaf tins, but you can use anything from one big tin to cupcake cases.

Bung them in the oven for around 25 mins. This time will change slightly depending on the size of your tins. (If your cake is larger, it will take slightly longer). To check if your cake is done, see if it is a golden brown on the outside and 'springy' to the touch. If you're not sure, you can poke it with a skewer- if it comes out the cake covered in raw mixture, give your cake a while longer.

Once you've removed your cakes from the oven, let the tin cool and then tip your cakes onto a wire rack to cool further.

If you wish to ice your cake, take the remaining half of the lemon from earlier and squeeze the juice into a small bowl. Mix this with either three tablespoons of icing sugar or 3 teaspoons of castor sugar. The type of sugar you use will change the type of icing- you will get a thicker icing with icing sugar, where as you'll get more of a syrup with the castor sugar. If you wish to make a syrupy icing, you should heat your bowl for around 30 seconds in the microwave to help the castor sugar dissolve into the lemon juice. When your cake is cool, drizzle with your chosen icing and leave the icing to set.

I decorated mine with a twist of lemon coated in lemon syrup. To do this, take a thin slice of lemon and make a small cut to its centre. Twist and drizzle with your chosen icing. 

There you have it, the perfect cake to wash away rainy day blues!