This right here? This is maybe the best pound cake I’ve ever come up with. Lemon corn buttermilk pound cake is the pound cake you should be making every summer! If you think corn pound cake sounds interesting but you aren’t quite committed to the idea, please keep reading.
As is the case with all my pound cake recipe, it is a variation of my master pound cake recipe. The liquid in the cake is made by pureeing fresh corn and buttermilk together and then straining it out. There is also a touch of cornmeal in the batter.
Add in some lemon zest and this cake is a beautiful balance of lemon and corn. I think you will love it! And if you are a fan, try this same flavor combo in my lemon corn panna cotta too!
For ease of browsing, here are all of my pound cake recipes, my cake recipes and my individual dessert recipes. Enjoy!
This post and recipe was created for #SummerDessertWeek 2018. I was sent samples by some of the sponsor companies but as always opinions are 100% mine.
A Love Affair with Pound Cake
I love pound cake. I mean, really love it. I have a whole category dedicated to pound cakes on the blog, and I like to come up with new flavors almost every time I make it. My two most recent pound cake updates are my whipping cream pound cake and brown sugar cinnamon pound cake.
A few years ago, I toyed with the idea of writing a cookbook all about pound cake, and while I have since decided I don’t think I have a cookbook in me right now, I have quite a few recipes I developed for the book that will find their way to the blog at some point.
This lemon corn buttermilk pound cake is one of these cakes. And it’s pretty magical, friends. Don’t take my word for it, though. Indulge me by reading some of my recipe testers’ comments after testing this recipe:
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Social Proof: This Lemon Buttermilk Pound Cake Is Fantastic!
The cake is still divine – even on day 2. The lemon flavor is more pronounced while the corniness has mellowed. I’m bringing the rest of the cake with me to the office tomorrow because I can’t be trusted.
Susan B
I love this cake. A humble cornbread has now become a glamourous pound cake. Everyone who ate it could not believe the ingredients in it. And even after 5 days, the cake was very moist and the flavours deepened. This is definitely a favorite of mine.
Sita K.
So…this insane cake haunts me…Making it for the fourth time tonight…
Larry N.
How Do You Make Pound Cake?
Pound cakes were originally made with a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. An easy, no-nonsense formula you could scale up or down.
The 1:1:1:1 ratio yields a cake with
- a tight crumb
- a mild sweetness
- a tendency toward dryness after a day or two.
Modern variations on the pound cake tend to increase the sugar and decrease the eggs. For example, my basic pound cake recipe calls for 3/4 pound butter, 1.25 pounds of sugar, 1/2 pound of eggs, and just over 3/4 pounds of flour.
Other pound cake components that weren’t included in the original formula:
- liquid, usually in the form of some sort of dairy
- some baking powder and/or baking soda to keep the crumb from being very dense
- salt and flavorings. Originally, the cake probably called for salted butter, but these days, most bakers use unsalted and then add in controlled amounts of salt.
How To Make Pound Cake Moist
If you’ve ever had dry, crumbly pound cake, you will want to know the secret to moist pound cake. Even traditional pound cake can be made more moist if you wrap it up as soon as you take it out of the pan.
If you let your cake sit out to cool to room temperature, a fair amount of moisture evaporates during that process, and pound cake needs as much liquid as it can get.
Wrapping it in plastic wrap and refrigerating it until it reaches room temperature ensures that the vast majority of the liquid stays in the cake where it belongs.
Pro Kitchen Tip: Use the wrapping trick for any cake you bake. You’ll be able to tell the difference!
Before we get to the buttermilk pound cake recipe, please take a peek at all the other dessert entries for today. So much goodness, you guys.
Make This Cake Using The Creaming Method
Performing the mixing method to make a pound cake is pretty critical. I use a modified creaming method where I beat the eggs together and drizzle them in very slowly.
Most recipes will have you add one whole egg at a time, but the more slowly you add your eggs, the more stable your batter will be. Please watch the video located in the recipe card if you’d like to see this In Action.
In the video, I make 2 cakes at once using two mixers, so you’ll get to see the creaming method, times two.
Summer Dessert Week Recipes for July 12, 2018
Ice Cream Recipes:
- Mermaid Magic Shell (Mermaid Popsicles) from Big Bear’s Wife
- S’mores Popsicles from My Sweet Zepol
- No Churn Frozen Hot Chocolate Ice Cream from 4 Sons ‘R’ Us
- Cherry Vanilla Ice Pops from The Domestic Kitchen
Pies of Summer:
- Strawberry Lemonade Pie from Daily Dish Recipes
No-Bake Treats:
- Raspberry Rosé Parfaits from Me and My Pink Mixer
- Peaches and Cream Ice Box Cake from A Southern Soul
Baked Desserts:
- Cinnamon Twists from Eat Move Make
- Mixed Berry Crisp from The Bitter Side of Sweet
- Lemon Cornmeal Poundcake from Pastry Chef Online (you’re here!)
- Strawberry Lemonade Bars from Sweet ReciPEAs
Serving suggestion: Try playing up the lemon aspect of this wonderful cake by serving it with an easy no churn lemon ice cream. You can also play up the corniness by serving it with corn ice cream. Which is incredibly delicious, by the way!
A Note About Measurements
Don't let its small price and small size fool you. The Escali Primo is an accurate and easy-to-use food scale that I have used for years. It's easy to store, easy to use, has a tare function, and easily switches between grams and ounces/pounds for accurate measurements.
It will help me and other readers so much if you take a moment to rate and leave a review for this recipe.
You can use the stars to rate 1-5 (5 is best), and leave a review in the comments. It helps me make adjustments if any are needed, and comments help others decide whether the recipe is worth making.
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Thank you so much for taking the time!
Lemon Corn Buttermilk Pound Cake
Ingredients
- 6 oz sweet white corn kernels fresh or no-salt-added canned, drained (about 1 1/3 cups)
- 6 oz buttermilk at cool room temperature 3/4 cups (and maybe a touch more, if necessary)f
- 11 oz all purpose flour 2 1/2 cups
- 2 oz finely ground white cornmeal 1/3 cup plus 2 Tablespoons
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 12 oz unsalted butter 3 sticks, cool room temperature
- 18 oz granulated sugar 2 1/3 cups
- 1 ¼ teaspoons fine sea salt
- zest of a medium lemon
- 5 eggs beaten, cool room temperature
Instructions
- Set a rack in the lower third of your oven and preheat to 350F. Thoroughly spray and flour a 12 cup Bundt pan, tapping out the excess flour. Set aside.
- Combine the corn and buttermilk in a blender jar and blend until corn is pureed. Pour through a fine mesh strainer, pressing down well on the solids. You should end up with 10 oz of liquid, or 1 1/4 cup. If you are a little shy of that, add buttermilk until you have 10 oz.
- Thoroughly sift or whisk together the flour, corn meal, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
- With a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter until smooth, scraping the bowl and paddle as necessary.
- Add the sugar, salt and lemon zest. Cream on medium-high speed until very light and fluffy, scraping the bowl and paddle as necessary. This will take about 8 minutes.
- With the mixer on medium-low speed, slowly drizzle in the beaten eggs, a bit at a time, scraping the bowl and paddle as necessary. This should take about 5 minutes.
- Alternate adding the dry ingredients and the buttermilk/corn mixture, beginning and ending with dry. I add the dry in 3 additions and the milk in 2. After the last addition of dry ingredients, you can finish mixing the batter by hand with a spatula.
- Scoop the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake until the cake is a beautiful deep golden brown and the cake is just starting to pull from the sides of the pan. The internal temperature should be 200F. Baking time will vary depending on your oven. Start checking at around 50 minutes and go from there. It takes 1 hour and 5 minutes in my oven.
- Remove to a rack and cool for 30 minutes before turning out. To make the cake extra moist, wrap the unmolded cake really well in plastic wrap and refrigerate until cool. Otherwise, leave it to cool.
- This cake is lovely as is, but you could also add some lemon glaze or a dusting of powdered sugar for serving.
Did You Make Any Changes?
Video
Notes
Nutrition
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What an amazing cake! Summer in a slice!
That’s the perfect description–sunny lemon and sweet, earthy corn. It really *is* summer in a slice! Enjoy!
My favorite dessert whether winter or summer or fall or spring is pound cake. It always has been! Even when I’m sick it settles my stomach………can’t wait to make this one!
I hope you really enjoy it, Kelli!
Angel food cake with strawberries and fresh whipped cream! This cake sound amazing. I love the texture cornmeal in baking–as long as it is not dry and crumbly. Great tip on how to keep it moist!
I think you’ll really love this, Kate. It stays moist for days!
Whoa! This looks incredible!
It is stupidly good, Rhonda! Please turn it into a rum cake. 🙂
This looks so amazing. And when I looked at the ingredients I wasn’t terrified! So maybe I’ll give it a try. 😉
My favorite summer dessert is usually ice cream, which is uneventful, but I do love some strawberry shortcake when the strawberries are super fresh and sweet!
Hooray! And also: ice cream is the opposite of uneventful. As far as I’m concerned. all ice cream is event-worthy! =) Good luck in the giveaway, Andrea!