40

Ok so this is going to look like I only make lemon drizzle cake but a) this one was MUCH harder than the usual ones and b) it seems to be the one that gets requested the most. I'll have you know I am incredibly versatile with my cake making. Anyway it was a guy at works 40th birthday so not only was I told to make a cake but I was told to make it shaped in numbers. Panic, crisis etc but it actually worked out fine. Note to self if you are going to dust lemon drizzle with icing sugar do it at the last minute so it doesn't just get absorbed.

So I usually make it in a loaf cake, apply the drizzle while its cooling and leave it sitting in its tin until the last minute but because I needed to make a 40 I had to use 2 springform cake tins which meant there would be leaks. In hindsight putting each cake in its tin on a plate before drizzling so they could sit in the liquid a bit would have been a good idea. As it was my entire house is now covered in lemon drizzle - I had to double drizzle to make up for the bits the seeped off - and it went everywhere. Thank god we've got a dog. So as late as possible we drew a 4 on some baking paper, stick it on the drizzle and cut around it with a really sharp knife. You need to be firm with this - half hearted cutting isn't going to look good. If you were doing a chocolate cake or something then you could cover the whole cake with icing and then people would think you'd bought it which would be pretty smug-making.

Anyway I've shown my lemon drizzle recipe before (here - I doubled the amount this time) so I just wanted to show off the finished product.

I'd like to mention it looked much better before the icing sugar had been absorbed... and when the candles were lit but they made my face feel like it was melting so I didn't want to risk my camera.