- 12
- 20 mins
- 20 mins
Ingredients
- 250 g pack unsalted butter, very soft, plus extra for the tin
- 3 unwaxed lemons
- 200 g golden caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- 2 medium courgettes, coarsely grated (you'll need 300g/10oz flesh)
- 1 tsp poppy seed, plus extra to decorate
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 100 g self-raising flour
- 100 g plain wholemeal flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 85 g icing sugar
- 200 g pack full-fat soft cheese
- 4 tbsp lemon curd (optional)
Preparation
Step 1
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Courgettes can hold quite a lot of water, which can affect the finished texture of your cake. If your grated courgettes seem watery, place them into a clean cloth and wring out some of the liquid into a bowl. Then add the courgettes to the cake mixture as normal. The timing for cakes containing courgette can depend on the water content of your courgettes, so return the cake to the oven for another 10 mins if it needs it. Simply test with a skewer and make sure it comes out clean.
Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.
Butter 2 x 20cm sandwich tins and line
the bases with baking parchment.
into a mixing bowl.
Beat to a creamy batter. Stir in 1 tbsp
lemon juice, the
and ¼ tsp salt. Spoon the mix into the
tins, then bake for 25 mins or until risen,
golden and springy in the middle.
Make a drizzle by mixing another tbsp
lemon juice with 25g icing sugar. Put the
remaining icing sugar and butter into a
bowl, add the soft cheese, remaining
lemon juice (about 2 tbsp) and grate in
the final lemon’s zest. Beat to make a
creamy, smooth frosting.
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Really lovely cake! But I had some trouble with mixing the butter and cream cheese - even with very soft butter!! Next time I will make it with less butter in the frosting.
This was a great recipe. The people that complained about the all-in-one method couldn't have read the ingredients list that read 'very soft butter'. Those that complained that the frosting was too runny maybe used half fat cream cheese instead of full fat? Half fat will always go runny when beaten.
Will definitely make this cake again.
Delicious! We all reall enjoyed this cake. I followed the recipe exactly apart from using all white flour, it looked a little curdled but baked perfectly and tasted yummy! Will definately make again.
I have made this cake three times now. The first time I was making it for my sister's birthday last year and it didn't rise much but I hadn't read the tip about squeezing excess liquid from the courgettes. When.I tried again having done so it was fine (the mixture does look curdled even after folding in the flour but it doesn't affect the finished cake) and everyone declared it delicious. I have just made it again for my niece's wedding. There were three other cakes to choose from but this one went in a flash - when I went to get myself some cake all that was left of this one was a tiny two-mouthful slice but plenty of all the other three (including my chocolate one!). I did have to put more icing sugar in the frosting mixture and it still seemed a tiny bit soft but it set firmer after the cake was stored in the fridge overnight and was fine after that even though it was a very hot day. I'll definitely be making it again!
I can't comment on the taste of this cake as it is currently in the freezer awaiting consumption. However, I found that making it was problematic. First of all, I fully concur with those who posted that the final mixture looked curdled and I did wonder about this. I too found it odd that it doesn't seem to be necessary to beat the butter and sugar together to begin with. Furthermore, the cooking time was totally off, I had to give it a good extra 20 minutes to half an hour. Finally, my cakes simply did not rise. Each one was 1.5cm high at best. Please note that I am not a beginner baker/chef, quite the opposite in fact.
Please please do NOT make this cake, made it yesterday and the icing is completely awful; so runny it caused the top layer of the cake to slide off the bottom. As soon as the top layer was put on, all the inside just ran out the sides - completely useless. However much icing sugar was added made no difference, it was unusable and ruined the cake, if you are making this cake please use a different icing recipe if you don't want it to look like a pile of vomit on a cake stand. Let's hope it tastes nice.
I did make a few small tweaks: first, I creamed the butter and sugar before adding the lemon zest, vanilla and poppy seeds and only then added the lemon juice and courgette (didn't bother squeezing them first, though I did peel them); I used 200g self-raising flour instead of half and half (this made it really light); and made a lemon butter-cream icing instead of the cream cheese icing (used half for the filling along with lemon curd and put the other half on top). I also added a large teaspoon of lemon curd to the cake mix which gave it an extra lemony boost as well as adding to the moisture. The mixture did look slightly curdled when it went in the oven, but came out beautifully anyway.
I haven't tried tasting this cake yet but to be honest I'm not keen to. I've never experienced such a greasy cake - it's dripping butter - yuk! I made it by hand so creamed the butter and sugar first but the eggs still didn't mix in properly. Bbc good food recipes usually work out great but I won't be trying this again - not sure how I can rescue it apart from serving between slices of kitchen roll to mop up the grease!
Used part of an 'overgrown' courgette - I did not squeeze it out as have read that if you grate it immediately before using it should be fine, and it was. Like others I creamed the butter and sugar before adding the eggs gradually etc. this produced a lovely light cake. However, despite following the frosting recipe exactly it was far too runny - I added a bit of extra icing sugar to no avail, so I whipped up about 200 ml of double cream and mixed it into the frosting - it was lovely. Will definitely make again, great way to use all those courgettes!
I baked this according to the recipe, without reading the comments which recommended creaming the butter and sugar before gradually adding the eggs... My mixture curdled, not at all a creamy batter. But it rose perfectly and wasn't dense at all so I don't think the curdling made any difference, thankfully! What a delicious cake and an unusual mix if ingredients. Love it!
Unfortunately this recipe was very disappointing and I ended up with an inedible cake! The recipe should instruct you to cream the butter and sugar together at first instead of combining everything but the dry ingredients. Ended up with a sloppy mixture with uncombined butter and ultimately a bad cake and wasted ingredients!! Disappointed after previous comments were so positive.
This is a lovely cake - I didn't see the tips re squeezing out the courgette liquid but I did use a fairly large courgette (think small marrow) and it wasn't too wet but it did need the additional 10 mins cooking time. It was a very nice texture although not so much 'cakey', but still light. I bypassed the cream cheese frosting and used whipped cream with lemon curd stirred through which was delicious. (only issue for me was dropping the half we didn't eat - soooo disappointing as no second helpings!!). Will definitely be making again - oh and yes my mixture did curdle but I never do find that to be a problem to the end result in cake baking!
Lovely cake, used up some courgettes given to me from bumper crop at friends allotment. I did squeeze the courgettes and a fair amount of water came out so would advise doing this. My frosting was very runny, not sure if this was down to the summer heat or maybe should reduce the amount of lemon juice. I had to add lots more icing sugar to thicken but very nice and would make again.
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