Simple Air-Fryer Lemon Cake

The lemon cake is the cake recipe everyone should have memorised. It's a butter sponge with lemon zest and juice folded in — there's nothing to it, but done well it's better than most fancier cakes. The air fryer version uses a small (6-inch / 15cm) round cake tin that fits the basket, and cooks the cake in roughly half the time of a conventional oven.

The technique is the classic creaming method: softened butter and caster sugar beaten until pale and fluffy (this is what gives the cake its lift — air whipped into the fat), then eggs added one at a time, lemon zest and juice, finally flour and a tiny amount of milk. Pour into a lined tin, air-fry at 320°F for 25 minutes.

A simple lemon syrup gets brushed across the top while the cake is still warm — the syrup soaks in and adds extra moisture and lemon punch. Powdered sugar dusted right before serving.

The photo shows the cake in the air-fryer basket: golden domed top with a slice cut to show the bright yellow interior — visible crumb, lemon-flecked, the kind of cake you'd cut yourself a piece of standing at the counter.