Easy Pound Cake

I've been craving cake for the last few days. Unfortunately (or possibly fortunately, depending on how you look at it), we don't have any cake and I haven't had the time or the energy to change that fact. What we have had though are little containers of surplus lemon juice and lemon zest sitting in the fridge, waiting for a use. I was worried that if I didn't use them soon, they'd end up going bad, so I decided that (and my unrelenting cake craving) were enough reason for me to prioritize making myself a lemon pound cake.

Normally I put the version of the recipe that I actually made at the top as the main focus of the write-up and add any alternate versions below. But, since the lemon version is just the vanilla version + some lemon juice and lemon zest, I figured I might as well do that as the focal point and put the lemon variant below.

Pound Cake

Slightly adapted from Cook's Country December/January 2017

Ingredients

• 250g sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 Tbsp. vanilla extract
• 1 c. unsalted butter, melted and hot
• 170g soft (plain/standard/cake) flour
• 1/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1 tsp. baking powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease and flour a 21.5x11.5cm (8.5x4.5") loaf pan.
2. Beat sugar with eggs and vanilla.¹
3. Slowly drizzle in the hot butter while continuing to beat the egg mixture.
4. Sift in ~1/3 of the flour, sprinkle the salt on top, then this into the batter.
5. Sift in 1/2 the remaining flour and mix it in.
6. Sift in the last portion of flour along with the baking powder and mix it in.
7. Beat until there are no more lumps.
8. Pour the batter into the perpared tin.
9. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 50-60 minutes.
10. Remove from oven and let cool in tin set on wire rack for 10 minutes.
11. Turn cake out of tin and set on wire rack to finish cooling.
12. If desired, drizzle with citrus glaze. (See below)

Citrus Glaze

Ingredients

• 1/2 c. icing (powdered/confectioners') sugar, sifted
• 3-4 tsp. lemon, lime, or orange juice
• 1 tsp. lemon, lime, or orange zest (optional)

Directions

1. Wisk juice into sugar 1 tsp. at a time until desired consistency is achieved.
2. Mix in zest (if using).
3. Drizzle over cake.

---

Variantions

Lemon Pound Cake

Ingredients

• 250g sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 Tbsp. vanilla extract²
• 2 Tbsp. lemon zest
• 2 tsp. lemon juice
• 1 c. unsalted butter, melted and hot
• 170g soft (plain/standard/cake) flour
• 1/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1 tsp. baking powder

Orange Pound Cake

The recipe for orange pound cake isn't actually included in the magazine. It simply says that for the orange, almond, and ginger variants you should go to the Cook's Country website. Unfortunately, they only offer free access to those recipes for three or four months after the magazine comes out. And this one is now six years old. My guess is that the orange version was just the lemon version, but with orange zest and juice in place of the lemon. I'm not sure what the others would have been though.

• 250g sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 Tbsp. vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp. orange zest
• 2 tsp. orange juice
• 1 c. unsalted butter, melted and hot
• 170g soft (plain/standard/cake) flour
• 1/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1 tsp. baking powder

---

¹ Cook's Country actually recommends doing this step in a food processor, but I don't have one of those, so I just used my hand mixer on one of the higher settings. The next step is also meant to be done in the food processor. This (along with the temperature of the hot butter) apparently helps to emulsify the mixture. Once the butter is mixed in, you're meant to transfer it to a bowl and mix in the dry ingredients with a whisk. I just did the whole thing in a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer. Do whatever works for you. ^Back
2 The recipe doesn't call for reducing the vanilla at all when making the lemon version but a) vanilla is expensive, b) I was running a little low, and c) I didn't want to dirty another measuring spoon, so I just reduced the vanilla to 1 tsp., rather than 1 1/2. I figured it'd be fine to go a little light on the vanilla since we would be getting the lemon flavour in there as well. ^Back