Lemon Buttermilk Birthday Cake

Our answer

Nigella's Buttermilk Birthday Cake (from HOW TO BE A DOMESTIC GODDESS) is a very versatile cake and it is possible to make a lemon-flavoured version of the cake. To flavour cakes you usually use lemon zest as this contains a lot of flavour in the esential oils in the zest. We woud suggest using the finely grated zest of 2 large, preferably unwaxed, lemons and omitting the vanilla extract.

You can put the caster (superfine) sugar into a bowl and add the grated zest, then rub the two together with your fingers to help release the oils from the lemon zest. Then add the butter and cream the two together, following the recipe. We would not add any lemon juice to the cake batter as it already has some acid in the form of buttermilk in it and too much acid will affect the action of the raising agents. But you can make a lemon glace icing for the top of the cake by mixing about 150g (1 1/2 cups) icing sugar (confectioner's sugar) with enough lemon juice to make a thick but pourable icing.