Tags
baking, butter, citrus, Clear Lemon Glaze, cookbook, Country Kitchen, Daffodils, dense, eggs, flour, Forsythias, fresh, lemon juice, Lemon Pound Cake, lemon zest, Lemons, light, Mennonite, recipes, Rural Living, Spring Day, sugar, yellow, zest
It is spring now, finally and I felt like something bright and yellow like the Forsythia’s and Daffodils, so a nice Lemon Pound Cake was in order.
This recipe of course is made from scratch, with fresh lemon juice and butter, since the weather is warmer and you feel like being outside more and walking more you can eat this and work it off outside now!! Better yet, make it and share it with friends, then the total burden will not fall on you to work it off.
I will add here like all things made from scratch that, at home we don’t always follow a recipe exactly, this time I did not feel like a tube cake, so I divided the batter into two loaf pans. (you may want to check your cake for doneness after about an hour, since it is in two pans) for me it was done in about 1 1/4 hours.
Also, I did not have lemon extract, so put a quarter cup lemon juice in, which I did reduce the milk by 1/4 cup.
I also love to use zests of citrus when I am cooking. so I added finely chopped lemon zest to the sugar about an hour or so before making the cake, (the sugar helps draw out the oils from the zest)
This recipe was NOT from a Mennonite cookbook which I rely on heavily, I found it online and used it basically because it had oil in it which I have never seen before (I am assuming they did this to make a less heavy or dense cake) which I prefer the heavier pound cake. However I feel that the recipe came out nice kind of middle of the road, not dense and not light. I was pleased with it.
I will also add here that the cake would have been just fine WITHOUT the lemon glaze. However I just wanted to see what difference it made.
Pound Cake
1 cup Butter, softened
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 cups Sugar
5 Eggs
3 cups All Purpose Flour
1 cup Milk
1 tsp Lemon Extract (I used 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice)
Zest from 2 lemons, chopped fine and mixed with the sugar
Glaze
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Water
1 tsp grated Lemon Rind
1/4 cup Lemon Juice
Preparation
Cream butter in mixing bowl., at medium speed.
Gradually add oil. beating until well blended.
Gradually add sugar beating well.
Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add flour to mixture alternately with milk, starting with flour and ending with flour.
Mix just until blended after each addition.
Stir in lemon extract (1/4 cup fresh lemon juice in my case)
Pour batter into greased and floured 10 inch tube pan (I used 2 loaf pans)
Bake at 300 degrees for 1 hour & 30 minutes, or until a wooden tooth pick or cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool cake on wire rack for 15 minutes, then remove cake to wire rack to finish cooling.
Glaze
Combine all ingredients (I used warm water) and stir until sugar dissolves,
Brush over top and sides of cake a little at a time.
Let cake cool completely.
Enjoy
