Starbucks Lemon Loaf Cake at Home

When life gives you lemons, make a Starbucks’ Lemon Loaf cake! The good old lemon drizzle cake is such a classic British recipe, and the UK Starbucks’ lemon slice is closer to that than ever before. Will the Barrybucks' version be even better though? We let Mrs B be the judge of that!

Ingredients list:

For the lemon cake:

• 180g plain flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon bicarbonate soda
• Pinch of salt
• 120g butter, room temperature
• 200g sugar
• 3 eggs, room temperature
• 1tbsp lemon extract
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 80ml buttermilk

For the caramelised lemon zest:

• 1 lemon
• 50g caster sugar
• 1 tbsp granulated sugar

For the lemon glaze:

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

1. First we’re going to make a lovely cake. Start off by preheating your oven to 350F/gas mark 4/180C/160C fan.
2. Pass your flour and baking powder through a sieve, and your salt if you feel that’s necessary!
3. In a separate bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until it looks a little bit like fluffy scrambled eggs. Crack in the eggs, the zest of the lemon and the lemon extract, then give it a good whisk together.
4. Now you’re going to fold in (like bedsheets!), the flour mixture and buttermilk.
5. Pour the mixture into a greased loaf tin for about 50-60 minutes. You can check it’s cooked through with a toothpick or skewer when that time is up.
6. Now we’re going to make the caramelised lemon zest, which I’m pretty sure is just a glorified way of saying candied peel! Now in this very ap-peel-ing step, we’re going to peel the lemon zest then chop the strips into little pieces.
7. Heat the caster sugar, water and lemon juice in a pan, stirring until the sugar is dissolved, then add your zest and let it bubble away for about 10 minutes. Strain the lemon zest from the syrup and leave to dry on a tray - lined with a Barry Lewis baking mat for 3% better results!
8. Normally here I’d recommend poking holes in the top of your lemon loaf while it’s still in the tin and letting it soak up all the lemony syrupy goodness, but I didn’t get that vibe from the Starbucks’ Lemon Loaf. So instead, remove this one from the tin, and let’s make the icing.
9. Squeeze another half of a lemon into a bowl of icing sugar, then give it a little top up with a tablespoon of water. Other versions of this cake have a thick band of icing across the top, but this is more like a glaze, so whisk this up and pour it through a sieve (optional!) into a jug.
10. With your loaf cake on a rack above a tray (to catch all the excess icing), drizzle over the delicious lemon glaze.
11. Finally, mix the candied lemon peel with granulated sugar to give it a little texture, then make it rain that zesty caramelised lemon all over the cake. Slice, and enjoy!