Mary Berry’s recipes are what you need if you’re looking to make a dessert many will love – and her lemon drizzle traybake is one of them.

When baking this recipe, the sponge comes out incredibly light and soft and it’s made better with the crunchy lemon and sugar glaze so it’s easy to see why it’s a favourite of hers.

Not only is this recipe ever so easy to follow with such few steps, but I already had all the ingredients needed and you might do too.

Describing this bake, Mary wrote: “This really is our top favourite. It is always moist and crunchy.

“The cake needs to be still warm when the topping is added so that it absorbs the lemon syrup easily, leaving the sugar on top. Do allow the cake to cool a little though – if it is too hot the syrup will tend to run straight through.”

This traybake cake took me just under 10 minutes to prep and baked in the oven for 40 minutes.

Ingredients 

For the sponge

225g butter, softened

225g caster sugar

275g self-raising flour

Two teaspoons baking powder

Four eggs

Four tablespoons milk

Finely grated rind of two lemons

For the crunchy topping

175g granulated sugar

Juice of two lemons

Method 

I started by cutting a rectangle of non-stick grease-proof paper to fit the base and sides of a 30 x 23 x 4 cm tin before greasing and lining it, pushing it neatly into the corners of the tin. Once that was done, I preheated the oven to 160C/325F/Gas 3.

The next step was to measure out all of the ingredients for the sponge, add them all to a large bowl and beat well for two minutes until well blended. For this step, I used my stand mixer but you can also beat by hand with a wooden spoon.

I then turned the mixture into the prepared tin, scraping the sides of the bowl with a plastic spatula to remove all of the mixture before levelling the top gently with the back of the spatula.

Transferring the tin to the pre-heated oven, I placed it on the middle shelf for about 35 minutes but left it in for a further five minutes as it needed a little more time.

You’ll know when the traybake cake is ready when it springs back when pressed lightly with a finger in the centre and is beginning to shrink away from the sides of the tin.

After taking the cake out of the oven I allowed it to cool in the tin for a few minutes before lifting it out of the tin still in the lining paper – this was probably the hardest part.

I carefully removed the paper and put the traybake onto a wire rack placed over a tray (to catch drips of the topping).

I finished off by making the crunchy glaze by mixing the lemon juice and granulated sugar in a small bowl to give a runny consistency.

I spooned this mixture evenly over the traybake whilst it was still just warm before cutting it into squares when fully cold.

As lemon juice was only added to the topping I thought the citrus taste would be minimal, but it came through lovely and made the cake taste delicious.