Good cake but thought it could use some work. My husband and I found it to be a bit too lemony. With so many eggs I should have known before making it that it would be like a pound cake in taste and texture. Next time I make this I will skip the lemon zest and lemon syrup and just use almond extract. I thought the syrup made it a little mushy in texture instead of moist.
This was exactly the lemon poppy seed cake I've been looking for. I like the pound cake texture, never had a light fluffy lemon poppy seed cake, just pound cake textured. I used the lemon juice from the lemon I zested and the rest bottled. Next time I will use all fresh squeezed. I also only used 4 eggs because we use jumbo. You definitely have to wrap this, refrigerate and rotate so the syrup works it's way through the entire loaf. I put this out at work and it was gone in the blink of an eye. Thank you for a classic.
Good taste but I prefer a lighter fluffier texture. This definitely has the consistency of a pound cake--thick. I think that the lemon syrup can be omitted as well. Does not add much to the cake.
Fab recipe - thanks so much for sharing it! One of those 'will never fail you' recipes - if you don't have enough poppy seeds lemon peel lemon juice etc it will still come out fine. I have made this many many times and have never once had a problem with it. No it's not gonna win a cake competition any time soon but as a stand alone timeless classic it works just fine. If you want to make them as muffins fill 14 muffin paper cases with the above measures and bake at 200 degrees Celcius for about 20 mins for fluffy light muffins. Then I make a lemon drizzle type topping out of icing sugar and the juice of 3 lemons which gives extra flavour & keeps them moist for a couple of days. The cases can sometimes end up a little greasy so I like to wait to they've cooled then pop them inside another case when offering to friends etc.
I love this recipe! The result is a very dense moist and somewhat tart cake. It's exactly what I was looking for.
I gave this recipe one star because this is not the cake I thought it was. I was expecting more apparantly. I thought it was dense and dry. I was hoping for a moist rich lemon cake and it was absolutey not that! If you are looking for a cake do not try this as it was more like bread.
This recipe has a good base but could use some tweaking. I made this once following the exact directions and I ended up with a difficult to mix batter and a burnt cake. I would cream the butter eggs and sugar together first. Add some lemon juice to the batter. Also ditch the syrup topping it's too bitter. And please if you're making this don't bake it for and hour and 15 minutes. I baked mine for 55 minutes and it was still too long. Sorry for all the negativity but I gotta be honest!:)
This cake is really delicious and lemony - we're actually using a version of it as a wedding cake! Some modifications I used to make this a really pretty cake: double the lemon zest don't use the syrup at all but instead make an icing from confectioners sugar lemon juice and milk (I used soy milk) and pour it on the cooled cake. Then you can sprinkle flower petals on it for a beautiful Easter or wedding cake.
This was the driest cake I have even tasted. I thought there was something strange about this recipe when I filled the pan with the batter---it was too thick and I thought it needed more "moisture" (ie. milk oil etc.)---five eggs? I definitely would't recommend this "moist" lemon poppy seed cake to anyone!
