When life gives you lemon drizzle cake

When life gives you lemon drizzle cake: improve it.

I am in lemon heaven right now. Seriously. I'm writing this in a state of lemon-infused elation. I shall elaborate.

At my university, and I assume at most others as well, the catering hall where we receive our nourishment each day also doubles as a sort of daytime café selling, among other things, homemade cakes and traybakes. WELL. Boy am I thankful for cakes going off. That doesn't make a lot of sense until I explain that when the best before date falls over the coming weekend, these tasty treats are given away for free on a Friday evening. By some glorious exam-season miracle, this week there was a whole stack of free stuff given away on Monday (with their best before dates mysteriously de-stickered, but I won't dwell on that; we got free cakes, after all), so naturally I have been on cloud nine ever since, knowing that there was a lovely little (HUGE) slice of cake waiting for me in my room.

cake looking fly but dry pre-improvement

As anyone who knows me remotely well will testify, I am a lemon fiend. I am a self-confessed lemon addict, who cannot get enough of all things citrus. Therefore naturally I made a beeline straight for the lemon drizzle - lemon is, without a doubt, the uncontested best cake flavour of all time. I remember one sad day when there was no lemon drizzle cake hidden away amongst the freebies, but the coffee cake sure was pretty darn delicious too. Mmmm such creamy icing. Yum.

Anyway yes, I snaffled myself a lemon drizzle slice. The only problem here was that it just looked a little.. lacking. In something. And if my suspicions are correct, it more than likely went out of date over the weekend and was just forgotten about in time for Freebie Friday. So here you have an easy peasy way to make stale lemon drizzle cake sumptuous and fantastic (or just less than fresh, or even when it is fresh, but you get the idea).

I knew a simple blast in the microwave wouldn't do the trick on its own, so I dug out a trusty food-jabbing implement (also known as a skewer; who would have known I brought a skewer to uni? I had forgotten, until dear Madre reminded me) and proceeded to puncture the cake.

just you wait, lemon slice, the best is yet to come (the DRIZZLE)

Cake hole-ifying complete, the fate of the slice then fell into the hands of some bottled lemon juice. Some people swear by this stuff, some swear against it - personally I am definitely a fan of actual lemon juice from actual lemons (although I am fairly certain lemons are involved at least somewhere along the line in producing bottled lemon juice?.. please) but bottled is just a lot more convenient for me for two reasons. a) I don't have a fruit juicy thing at uni (what are these called?! The roundy pyramid things with a bit to catch the juice..) and b) it lasts longer in terms of being more juice and having a longer shelf life. SO. I was extremely liberal with the juice (read: drenched the cake in a zingy fantastic puddle) and then zapped it in the microwave for about half a minute.

And then I gobbled it up. Well, I took photos, and then I gobbled it up. But I left it sitting for long enough that my room is now lemon infused - just another reason why I love that this lemon magic featured in my evening. I guess you could say this cake now has.. a 'zest' for life. Excellent. Well done me.

It's so worth it. The cake is cosy, and more lemony, and ooey gooey but not soggy, and tangy, and amazing. You'll see.

Here's a before and after of the gooifying process: 

before (yum but a little on the Sahara side)

after (look how shiny!!)

Please do this. Please welcome stale or almost stale or fresh or whatever lemon drizzle cake into your life, embrace it with open arms (mouth) because even if it's past its best (nope, lemon things are permanently at their best) it can be revived to a level of deliciousness you didn't even know existed. I know right, pretty cool.

The main reason you should do this? You should do this anyway because, and listen to this, without doing the jabbing and the drenching and all that shenanigans, this lemon drizzle cake would not have had any drizzle. Woah. Just let that sink in (ha ha ha) for a minute. Yeah, you back to reality now? News flash: lemon drizzle needs a drizzle. You're welcome.

So go! Go, my friends, and drizzle to your heart's content. Revive all your stale things by pouring lemon juice on them. Hope life gives you some lemons this week.

*All photos in this post are mine. If you wish to use any, please ask my permission and credit me!*