Isobel Cooks: Lemon Yoghurt Drizzle Cake

Isobel Cooks: Lemon Yoghurt Drizzle Cake

Friday, August 7, 2015

I'll be honest with you - cooking/baking has never been my forté (neither is food photography, but I'll work on that!) Despite my Mum being an amazing cook, her talent only really passed down to my siblings and missed me completely. I mean, I'm not a horrible cook - I can follow recipes and get decent results - but I don't have that flair that means that you don't even have to look at a recipe and produce something out of this world. So that's why all of the recipes that I will be posting in the future (including this one!) will be pretty much idiot proof; trust me, if I can pull it off then 99.5% of you will have the same success. Today I'm bringing you one of my recent favourites, a Lemon Yoghurt Drizzle Cake which will knock the socks off of anyone that tries a slice and will make you feel like the professional baker you long to be. The recipe is super simple and pretty customisable when it comes to intensity of flavours, so you have the freedom to play a bit. So without further ado I present to you a cake recipe that you'd be a fool to refuse...

Ingredients:

For the cake: 

175g butter 

175g caster sugar 

Grated zest of 2 lemons 

120g natural/greek yogurt 

2 large eggs, beaten 

175g self-raising flour 

For the syrup:

Juice of 2 lemons 

3tbsp caster sugar 

For the icing:

75g icing sugar, sifted 

Enough lemon juice to get the right consistency

Instructions: 

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Grease and line a round 15cm/6" loose bottom cake tin. 

2. Cream together the butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy. 

3. Add the yogurt and lemon zest to the mixture, and then add the eggs. 

4. Add the flour, mix well and spoon the mixture into the prepared tin. 

5. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes or until golden brown. Leave to cool

6. When the cake is nearly done, add the juice of the lemons to a small saucepan with the 

sugar and allow to reduce on a high heat. The consistency should still be quite thin.

7. Using a skewer or cocktail stick prick the cake all over and then pour the lemon 

sugar syrup all over the top, allow it to soak in.

8. Leave to cool completely before icing. 

9. Mix the icing sugar with the lemon juice until you achieve a runny paste consistency.
Drizzle the icing liberally over the cake until you're happy with the result.

Et voila! Now you've got a deliciously zesty and extremely moist cake to either share with friends and family, or gobble up yourself over a weekend whilst satisfying your Netflix quota. This is such a quick and easy treat to whip up (and that's coming from a novice like myself!) so give it a go and let me know what you think!

I x

p.s. I really don't like the name 'IR cooks' but couldn't think of anything else,
 so if you come up with something better, let me know!