Lemon tray bake cake

After my better half requested a lemon cake, who was I to refuse? 

I opted to do a classic pound cake but with lemon flavouring. And it was delish! However, instead of drizzle I opted for a light and fluffy lemon buttercream with candied lemon slices. I could have eaten this by the bowl-ful! 

I used a 31 x 20 x 4cm tin for this, one of those brownie ones on Amazon with the dividers, it worked perfectly for this amount of cake! 

Ingredients 

Cake- 

250g unsalted butter

250g caster sugar

250g self raising flour

5 medium eggs

Nice drizzle of lemon extract, roughly 2 tsp

Icing sugar-

250g unsalted butter (room temperature)

500g icing sugar

Tsp lemon extract 

Milk to loosen if required

Colouring (totally optional! But I highly recommend sugarflair colourings) 

Candied lemons-

400g sugar

400ml water 

2 lemons, thinly sliced 

How to do 

Cake- 

Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan, I greased my tin with a little butter and lined the bottom with baking paper. 

I began by using my stand mixer to beat the butter until smooth, a hand mixer or wooden spoon would also suit this recipe! 

Once smooth, I added the sugar and beat again until light and fluffy. Then combining the eggs, I set this quite high and regularly scraped the sides of the bowl. I wanted lots of air and it to be fully combined. It's around this time I add the lemon extract. 

I then removed my bowl from the mixer and added the flour. Gently folding in. Pound cakes don't typically rise that much so last thing we want to do is overbeat and overwork the mixture and knock that air out. Fold until fully combined and pop in the oven. 

I baked for roughly 20 minutes, however, check regularly and if in doubt use a knife to stab the middle. If it comes out clean/ slightly crumby, it's perfect! 

I left to cool on a wire rack, ensure it is fully cool before applying the buttercream on top or you'll end up with a runny mess! 

Buttercream-

Same as my celebration cake recipe, you will want to beat the unsalted butter for atleast 5 minutes. What we want to achieve is a nice pale whipped butter. This will make your buttercream delicious and white. Once it has significantly lightened in colour, you are ready to proceed to the next step. 

Add the icing gradually, start on a slow speed to combine then up the speed to beat it. We wanna beat it beat it beat it. Nice, light, pale and airy. 

Add the lemon extract, I also added some colouring but this is entirely optional, and continue to beat. Add some milk if required to loosen 

Candied lemons - 

Slice your lemon pieces as thin as possible, de-seed if required and set aside. 

Add the water and sugar to a saucepan, pop on a low heat and mix occasionally until combined. Add your lemon slices and whack it up to a medium heat until you have a light simmer. 

You'll want to simmer these for about 20 minutes. Flipping about halfway through. Regularly check the slices and sugar syrup volume to make sure it doesn't catch. 

Once done, carefully removed and place on a piece of parchment paper. Allow to cool and sit for as long as possible. 

Assemble, and voila! You are done!

This cake is truly delicious and was enjoyed by my family. Definitely a staple moving forward