Lemon Zest

A few lemons in the fridge and a hankering after cake...hmm, must be lemon drizzle cake.  My favourite citrus sponge, there are many recipes for this cake but the one that I've found tastiest, reliable and, best of all, simple is the one below.

Lemon Drizzle Cake
Ingredients
225g soft unsalted butter
225g caster sugar
4 eggs, lightly beaten
200g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
50g ground almonds
grated zest of 3 lemons
juice of 2 lemons
icing sugar

Method
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  You can do this by hand, with a handheld electric mixer or in a food processor.  Add three quarters of the lemon zest and the eggs and beat well to combine, don't worry if the mixture curdles this will be resolved when the flour and almonds are added.

Sieve together the flour and the baking powder and fold this into the egg mixture, then fold in the ground almonds then add three quarters of the lemon juice.  Put the mixture into a 20cm round cake tin which has been greased and lined and bake in the oven at 180C for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes.  Meanwhile mix the remaining lemon juice with enough icing sugar to make a thin icing.  Using a chopstick make about 10 holes in the top of the cake and spread the thin icing over the top of the cake.  Leave in the tin until the cake is cool but not cold and then remove from the tin and sprinkle over the reserved lemon zest.  Zingy!