Chocolate Covered Lemon Cake

As-Salamu Alaikum,

No denying I enjoy eating my fair share of cake but what I like just as much is making/baking it.

I find making and baking a cake very therapeutic and satisfying for the soul, every baker whether home or professional I'm sure feels the same.

This cake came from having an urge to bake cake (it happens often) but only having 150grams unsalted butter left in the house, lemons and a bar of plain chocolate cake covering and so my chocolate covered lemon cake was born and shortly after devoured.

You can't beat a buttery, soft, zesty cake with a chocolate 'shell' for extra self-indulgence!

I'm no stranger to the combination of chocolate and lemon together, I recently made chocolate lemon cupcakes and was bowled over by how well they work together BUT feel free to swap the lemon for an orange and you can have a chocolate covered orange cake or if you like cupcakes try my most popular viewed chocolate orange cupcakes instead.

Chocolate Covered Lemon Cake

Makes a 1x 20cm cake

Ingredients

150 grams unsalted butter or margarine, room temperature (take it out of the fridge the night before)

150 grams caster sugar

Zest of 1 lemon

3 eggs, medium or large

1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice

150 grams self-raising flour

Covering & Decoration

150grams plain chocolate, melted

Sprinkles (optional)

Method

Pre-heat oven to 350F/180C/160C (Fan)/Gas Mark 4 and place your oven rack in the centre.

Line the bottom of a  loose based 20cm round cake pan, grease and flour the sides.

Place butter, sugar and lemon zest in a large bowl, cream together until light and fluffy.

Add eggs one at a time, making sure each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next. If you notice the mixture curdling you can add a tablespoon of your self-raising flour to stabilize the mix.

Add lemon juice then sieve in self-raising flour, fold in until your mixture is homogeneous.

Pour cake mixture into cake pan and level using a palette knife. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a cake tester comes out with clean or with a few dry crumbs clinging to it.

Remove cake from oven and place on cooling rack. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, run a knife around the edges then loosen the collar on your loose based pan and remove it, leave on base place on cooling rack to cool completely then remove base and baking paper.

Place cake on serving plate, you may wish to level it but I didn't. Melt your chocolate in a heat proof bowl inside microwave on 30seconds bursts until full melted. Pour chocolate over cake and leave it to cool slightly before decorating with sprinkles. Leave chocolate to cool and set before taking a slice, if you can resist!

Note If I were to make this cake again, I would add some lemon zest to the top of the cake after pouring on the melted chocolate, just to give it that bit of extra zing! I did add lemon sugar crystals on half the cake (husband doesn't like sprinkles so I try to please everyone lol) but they didn't give so much lemon flavour as I hoped.