Found : Lost Tesco Lemon Drizzle Cake Recipe

Yesterday I went to make a tried and tested family favourite desert - Tesco Lemon Drizzle Cake but was dismayed when the link I'd added to my review of the recipe had been updated by Tesco with a different lemon drizzle recipe. The new recipe looks very nice but it's not the same recipe that was there before - it's not the recipe that everybody in my family loved! For a start it's baked in a loaf tin, it has ground almonds and vanilla extract in it and a different topping - icing with poppy seeds. The old recipe was much simpler, was baked in a round spring form sandwich tin and the topping consisted of stabbing the cake all over and pouring on lemon juice and granulated sugar which soaked into the cake making it wonderfully moist and zingy on the inside with a sugary crust on the top.
I tried to find the old recipe without any luck so gave up on the whole idea.
But then today I found a print out in my recipe folder! Hooray! So here it is for posterity and more importantly, for my reference. I have made a few modifications to the recipe which I mention in the instructions below.

I prefer to make the cake in a 20cm tin as it makes deeper cake slices but if I want to bake the cake more quickly, I'll use the larger 25cm tin, as I have today.

Today I served this with a cool dollop of crème fraîche which goes really well with the sweet lemony zing of the cake. It certainly helped to soothe the pesky headache I've had all day.

The Old Tesco Lemon Drizzle Cake Recipe
Serves 8

Ingredients:
200g Castor Sugar (original recipe states 250g which I found far too sweet)
250g Butter
250g Self Raising Flour or 250g Plain Flour + 3tsp baking powder
4 Medium Eggs
Zest of 2 lemons and juice of 1 Lemon (original recipe says to use the juice of both lemons but it made the cake too soggy)
50g Granulated Sugar (original recipe says 75g - again, I don't like to use that much sugar)
Warm water

To serve:
Crème fraîche (optional)

Equipment:
20cm or 25cm Spring form round cake tin
Greaseproof paper

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven to 180°C / 356F / Gas Mark 4
• Cut a piece of circular greaseproof paper for the bottom of your cake tin.
• Place in the tin. Grease and lightly flour the inside of the tin.
• Cream together the butter, lemon zest and sugar.
• Add a tablespoon of the flour and then gradually blend in the 4 eggs.
• Fold in the rest of the flour and baking powder, if you are using it.
• Mix in 2 tablespoons of warm water.
• Spread evenly in cake tin and bake for between 30-40 minutes, depending on the size of cake tin you've used. Check whether it's cooked or not by using the skewer method.
• Allow to cool in tin for 10 minutes before turning out. The smell at this point is fabulous!
• Prick the top of the cake all over with the skewer and spoon over the lemon juice. I put a plate under the cooling rack to catch the juice and stop it going all over the table. Then sprinkle with the granulated sugar (original recipe says to mix the sugar and lemon juice until dissolved but we like the crunchy texture of the whole granulated sugar).