For the 9- x 13-inch pan: 117 divided by 64 = 1.82, which is close enough to 2 that you can confidently double the recipe for the larger pan. I always use dark chocolate for my brownies, so white chocolate or plain base makes it… blonde! Blondies are sweet, delicious, and incredibly moreish. While most lemon bar crusts are butter-based, like a classic shortbread, this one opts for a modern upgrade: olive oil instead. A generous pinch of salt brings out the olive oil's savoriness in a way the lemons really love. Serve extra-cold with confectioners' sugar dusted on top. Brown Sugar: I find using a bit of brown sugar adds depth of flavor and moisture to this cake. Both of which are important characteristics of a good chocolate cake! SERVE. Slice it up in 9 or 16 pieces depending on how many people you plan on serving it to. I was instructed to cut BIG pieces because my kiddos have eyes bigger than their teeny little stomachs.

Make ahead of time? Cake is always best the day it’s baked. If you want to, you can bake, cool, and frost this cake the day before serving. The frosting acts as a barrier so you don’t need to worry about the cake drying out if you make it ahead of time. You can also bake the cake the day before to ensure that it is fully cooled before frosting it. I hope you’ll fall in love with this everyday chocolate cake. It’s rich, moist and decadent. Everything a good chocolate cake should be! Don't allow the baking pans to touch each other or the walls of the oven. Those parts of the pan might cook faster due to the extra heat. For the best results, make sure you have enough space in your oven to bake the cakes without touching anything.

Serving & Storing

The topping for this, you can make whilst it’s baking. It doesn’t take long, and you are making a sort of lemon curd, lemon meringue pie style lemon filling – that you will bake straight on top of the shortbread. It can end up making the shortbread look under baked, but it’s not – it’s just soaked up the delicious lemon goodness. I didn’t really decorate these blondies, as they were beautiful enough as they were! However, you can easily add something you want on if you like! But anyway.. I am OBSESSED AS ALWAYS. A little twist for these, is using custard powder in place of cornflour. They do act in a really similar way, but the custard powder brings a flavour of custard, and also the deeper and yellower colour! Make sure to zest your lemons first, and then juice them – the amount of lemons may vary because of the sizing – but it’s about 5 lemons you use. I grate my lemon zest on the fine one so the pieces aren’t too large!

What’s not to love about a delicious, fresh, homemade cake? Baking is a great way to pass the time at home, learn new techniques in the kitchen and showcase your creativity. And when you’re head baker at home, you choose what cake you’re going to make and what flavours you’re going for. If you wanted to use less almonds in general to make the mix a bit cheaper, you can leave out the ground almonds and up the flour to 275g in total. It’ll be basically the same mix as my white chocolate & caramel blondies then which is already a hit even though its been on my blog for so little time! Baking pans can be confusing sometimes because there are SO MANY to choose from! Round, square, oblong, rectangular, springform – for someone that bakes a lot it’s easy to reach for one, because you probably have them all. But what if you’re just starting out or don’t have a ton of cabinet space? Or maybe you want a square cake and not a round one!

Popular Recipes

Almond and jam… a delicious combination. Usually there is a pastry base, a jam layer, and almond filling, and decoration on top. These blondies are basically the same, just without the pastry! Cake layers freeze beautifully. Wrap each layer in plastic wrap. Next, place the cake layer or layers in resealable freezer bags. The un-frosted layers will maintain their flavor for at least 3 months.