With apologies to her Highness, the Queen, we will eat cake. Everyday.
While some scholars opine it was brioche she meant, and that’s for another day, today is pound cake.
The Real Deal from the Imposters
A true pound cake has no levening that isn’t the air incorporated into the batter by beating. Today that’s a rather easy, if not tedious and time consuming task. But, to imagine beating all those ingredients with a hand mixer is difficult to grasp. That alone may be why they were so regarded.
There are a few ways to get a proper pound cake and if you find one you like, that’s the one to keep. Certainly experiment and maybe invent your own hybrid, but the basics are mostly the same. We, bakers, over that last many dozens of years have altered the tradition a bit but it remains eggs, sugar, flour, and butter. A tweak or two here over a decades and the continued absence of baking powder keep this at least in the spirit it was intended.
Lemon Pound Cake
Bundt pan or loaf pan, this is an amazing cake. Feel free to add a Tablespoon of poppy seeds for an extra boost. As soon as you can cut it do so and don't tell anyone. Eat it with the peace of mind that it's your treat for such a task.
Ingredients
Pound Cake
- 8 oz Unsalted butter, room temperature
- 9 oz Granulated sugar
- 4 Lemons Zested
- 3 each Whole eggs
- 3 each Egg yolks
- 1.5 t Water
- 1.5 t Vanilla extract
- 1/2 t Salt
- 7 oz Cake flour, sifted
Lemon Glaze
- 3 oz 10X Confectioner's sugar
- 3 oz Water
- 4 t Corn Starch
- 1 t Vanilla extract Feel free to replace with lemon juice
Instructions
Mix the poundcake
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Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare your pan of choice with pan release spray.
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Cream the butter and sugar. This is the critical stage of mixing as the air incorporated is the leavening. Add the sugar in 5 or 6 additions with a lot of mixing in between additions to really beat the butter/sugar mix. A pale lemon yellow is the color goal and fluffy butter is the visual goal.
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Combine the egg, egg yolks, water, zest and extract together. Add slowly to the butter/sugar mixture. When it is fully incorporated, fold in the flour with a large faced rubber spatula. Gently pour into your prepared pan.
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Place on a sheet pan in the center of an oven. It ought not mess, but the sheet pan makes taking the cake out much easier. Bake for 45 minutes or until a cake tester placed and removed from the center comes out clean. A visual clue that nearly all cakes are done will be the cake pulling away from the sides of the pan.
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Remove and allow to cool at least 5 minutes, maybe longer, before tipping out of the pan. I have found resting the loaf cakes on the side, so the top and bottom are vertical works well.
Assemble glaze
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Combine all ingredients into a sauce pan. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook 1 minute.
Glaze the cake
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I like poking holes into the top of the cake (for the glaze: I take no joy in poking holes in the cake). Place the cake on the cooling rack and the cooling rack on the sheet pan and spoon the warm glaze onto the cake focusing on the holes so the glaze soaks in. You can withhold some glaze to reheat and add another coat.
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Feel free to add lemon zest as garnish. Serve with whipped cream and some fresh berries.
