Lemon drizzle cake, lemon drizzle cake...

For my first baking post, what better cake to bake than the classic lemon drizzle cake? Using a recipe which I first found on the BBC website some time ago, very similar to this one from Fay Ripley and the Hairy Bikers, this is perhaps my favourite cake (and very easy to make.) I don't enjoy the scientific aspect to baking- the weighing of ingredients and precise oven settings- so a lemon drizzle cake is ideal because it involves very little science and a lot of artistic flavour.

 Grating the lemon is a messy job, but leaves the kitchen smelling of citrus...

I find that the cake works best when the butter has been taken out of the fridge around half an hour before baking. I also find that the drizzle can become quite heavy if it is prepared too long before the cake comes out of the oven (that's what happened to my cake today!) On a cold Autumn day, this cake gives a taste of the zestiness of summer! 

  'The lemon drizzle cake contains...no nuts'

Some tips which I think might come in handy:

• Don't overdo the greaseproof paper- if it flaps around in the fan then it can cut into the cake mixture  
• Use the whole lemon to leave a nice lemony drizzle