lemon drizzle silk cake with cream cheese icing

This lemon cake looks great, and it’s easy to make – I promise!

I have been on a bit of a mission to make a light, silky lemon cake.  What is it about cake that it’s often so heavy?  Sometimes I want to be able to have a delicious piece of cake, and afterwards not feel like I ate the WHOLE cake. 

I did something a little crazy today….I made up my own cake recipe. Say what?  One. Whole. Cake. Prepared without the aid of any words written by someone else telling me what to do.  Often I’ll whip up simpler things like muffins, smoothies or soups from fresh air, and I have had some great success stories. Like my orange & strawberry breakfast muffins (sugar free), and my pawpaw strawberry & peanut butter breakfast smoothie.  As well as my homemade healthy pizzas which you can find here and here. 

But pretty two layer cakes are a whole other thing!

I had kind of an idea what should go into a lemon cake from a lemon loaf that I often make, I’ll share that one with you soon…So I kept those ingredients in mind while whipping this baby up.  Otherwise I was flying solo, and it was kind of fun not knowing how it would turn out, throwing it all together – and hoping for the best. 

One thing that will no doubt put me off making a cake is if the instructions are a mile long, or even more than half a page long….I don’t do fiddly, mind bogglingly complicated cooking.  Ever.  So I needed my cake to be simple, I needed it to be as quick to make as a layered cake can be.  And I needed it to taste amazing.  Like I said at the start of this post, I needed this lemon cake to be light and silky. 

My master plan was to add cornflour in with traditional cake flour in order to achieve the light, silkiness I was going for.  This worked a treat let me just tell you…even better than I expected.  I also decided to beat the egg whites separately from the other ingredients and then fold them into the batter to incorporate as much air into the cake as possible. 

I was amazed at how well this “thrown together by me” layer cake turned out!  It is all the things I was hoping for…. Light, silky – the texture is unlike any cake I have made before, it really is like silk on the tongue. 

It’s LEMONY!!  If you love lemons like I do you will LOOOOOVE this cake.  There’s lemon rind in the cake itself which gives a subtle flavour, there’s the lemon drizzle which packs a punch but in just the right doses.  And then there’s the lemon cream cheese icing which just perfectly balances and brings together the whole cake.  Basically it’s just delicious – I don’t know how else to describe its yumminess. 

At no point do you feel like you have OVER indulged.  I don’t even feel like I had a piece of cake today.  So you get the complete enjoyment in the moment while you eat your slice of cake, and get to feel great for the rest of the day too. 

As always I used the absolute minimum amount of sugar necessary, and I added honey to the icing so that is sugar free. 

Perfect for a ladies afternoon tea get together or even a birthday cake, I’ll be making this many times I’m sure. 

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lemon drizzle silk cake with cream cheese icing

Prep Time

15 mins

Cook Time

40 mins

Total Time

55 mins

 

Servings: 8

Author: berry sweet life

Ingredients

• CAKE:
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 cup corn flour
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 5 eggs
• 200 ml milk
• Rind of 2 lemons
• LEMON DRIZZLE:
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• Juice and rind of 1 lemon
• Lemon Cream Cheese Icing:
• 200 g soft plain cream cheese
• Juice of 1/3 lemon
• 2 1/2 tbsp honey

Instructions

1. Separate eggs and place egg whites in a large, clean bowl and beat with an electric beater until you can turn the bowl upside down and the whites stay put. Be sure not to let any yolk fall into the egg whites or your whites will not beat up properly.
2. Place egg yolks and all other cake ingredients in a large mixing bowl and beat on high for about 3 minutes until the mixture is silky smooth and shiny.
3. Gently fold in 1 tbsp of the egg whites with a metal spoon. Then fold in the remainder of the egg whites until well combined. Don’t over mix, you want to keep as much air in the mixture as possible.
4. Grease well and flour two 20cm round cake tins. Pour cake mixture into the tins, distributing it evenly between the two.
5. Bake at 180°C for 40 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.
6. Take the cake out the oven and place on a cooling rack, poke about 16 tiny holes in each cake with a clean tester. Pour over the lemon drizzle making sure you get some in each of the little holes. Leave to cool completely before turning out and cooling again on a cooling rack.
7. Once cake is room temperature, ice one cake with 1/3 of the cream cheese icing. Then place the other cake on top and ice the top of the cake with the remaining cream cheese icing. Grate a little lemon rind over the top and enjoy.
8. LEMON DRIZZLE:
9. Place brown sugar and juice and rind of lemon into a small sauce pan and heat gently until sugar dissolves. Take off the heat and set aside.
10. Lemon Cream Cheese Icing:
11. Mix all ingredients together in a medium size bowl until smooth, add more honey if you wish. Place in the fridge until your cake is ready to ice.