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Learning the Basics Allows You To Be Creative

You guys know that I’m all about the basics, right? How ingredients function, how to get them to do what I want them to do, how to mix them properly—all of these Science-y things that most folks find intimidating, I find fascinating.

And once you internalize the Science-y bits, that’s when the magic can really happen.

One of the most magical things that I make is my Perfect Pound Cake Recipe. I’ve made dozens of them, in dozens of different flavors, and I rarely make the same flavor twice unless I’m asked.

The Science is that I stick to the same proportions of flour, sugar, eggs, fat and liquid each time I make the cake.

More Science is how I take the time to build a very stable emulsion so I end up with a batter that is light and thick in which all the ingredients are evenly distributed so that when it bakes, it will have a beautiful, even crumb.

What Makes a Great Pound Cake?

I make most of my cakes, and especially my Van Halen Pound Cakes using my own refinement of The Creaming Method because to me, the hallmarks of a great pound cake are:

• tight, even, melting crumb
• welcome moistness

Some pound cakes can be a bit heavy and dry. Not my Van Halen Pound Cake. I do hope you’ll give it a try.

What Makes A Great Lemon Pound Cake?

The key to making the best any-kind-of-pound-cake is to layer in the main flavor in as many ways as possible. In the case of lemon pound cake, you could absolutely just use some lemon extract and call it a day.

But, if you want to achieve the most lemony, best lemon pound cake in all the land, you’ll have to do a bit more than just that.

This cake has lemon in all its forms:

• lemon zest, and lots of it. This is where all the essential oils live, in the yellow outside skin
• lemon juice, because just using the zest gives you the perfume of lemon but not the sourness. Using juice brings the tartness you expect from a lemon dessert
• lemon extract or lemon oil, but only a touch. I find that using too much of either one can taste artificial, so I use just enough to give the lemon flavor a bit of punch

And last, because we love the tartness of lemon so much, I add an additional tart ingredient. In the video, I used Greek yogurt. You can also achieve that lovely tang by using buttermilk and, to a lesser extent, sour cream.

Of course, the glaze is a great place to reinforce the flavor of the cake, so the holy trinity of zest, juice, and extract or oil come to play in the glaze, too.

How Watching the Pound Cake Video Can Be Helpful

Oh, about the video. I was making two pound cakes for our neighborhood’s Relay for Life team’s spaghetti dinner fundraiser. I mentioned on Facebook that I was going to make them at the same time since I have two stand mixers, and a couple of fans (cheeky fans) pretty much dared me to make a video set to Dueling Banjos. So I did.

Aside from being a fun video (I think it’s fun anyway), it also shows you step by step how to make any of the pound cakes on my site. Not the exact ingredients of course, but the procedure.

And once you learn the procedure, all you need is a list of ingredients.

If you’ve ever been unhappy with your “scratch made cakes,” I think this video will help you understand how to make a stable batter so you can be more successful. And if you are a Baking Wizard, I hope the video makes you smile. And maybe dance a jig.

Recipe

NOTE: Most of my recipes are written by weight and not volume, even the liquids. Even though I try to provide you with volume measurements as well, I encourage you to buy a kitchen scale for ease of measuring, accuracy, and consistency.

This is the scale I use, love, and recommend:

I really hope you love lemon pound cake, you guys! If you make it, please share a photo with me, either in the PCO Facebook Group or on instagram by tagging @onlinepastrychef and using hashtag #pcorecipe. Thanks, and enjoy!

Lemon Pound Cake

Yield: 16 -20

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Put together using my modified creaming method, this cake has a fine, dense crumb yet it melts in your mouth. I hope you will enjoy it.

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Ingredients

• 19 oz granulated sugar
• 12 oz unsalted butter at cool room temperature
• 1 gently rounded teaspoon fine sea salt
• Zest of 2 lemons, (use a Microplane for best results)
• 1/4 teaspoon lemon extract or 3 drops of lemon oil
• 5 large eggs, , beaten
• 13 oz cake flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 6 oz thick Greek yogurt, (without gums or other additives) or sour cream
• 2 oz freshly squeezed lemon juice, , strained
• 2 oz whole milk

Instructions

1. Set your oven rack to one below the center and preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Spray a 12-cup Bundt-type pan thoroughly with pan spray, then flour your pan very well. Knock out the excess flour. If you only have a 10-cup Bundt-type pan, you'll have about 1 1/2 cups of batter left over. You can use this to make a 6" cake or maybe 4-5 cupcakes. Go ahead and prepare those pans if necessary. *Set aside.
3. Cream together butter, sugar, salt, zest and extract/oil until very light and fluffy. Take your time here; it could take 10 minutes or more. You want your creamed mixture to be very pale in color (this lets you know that you've incorporated a lot of air into the mix) and very thick and fluffy. Scrape down your mixing bowl as necessary.
4. While the butter mixture is creaming, whisk together your flour, baking powder and baking soda. If after whisking, the flour seems a bit lumpy, go ahead and sift the dry ingredients. Set aside.
5. Whisk together the yogurt/sour cream, lemon juice and whole milk. Set aside.
6. Once the butter/sugar mixture is beautifully light, drizzle in the beaten eggs, a bit at a time, over a period of about 5 minutes. Scrape the bowl as necessary.
7. Alternately add the dry and wet ingredients, beginning and ending with dry, in this manner:
8. Add half the dry
9. Add half the wet
10. Add half of the remaining dry ingredients
11. Add the rest of the wet ingredients
12. Add the rest of the dry ingredients.
13. Mix on low for only about 5 seconds between additions. Scrape the bowl as necessary, making sure to get down to the bottom, but don't worry too much about completely mixing.
14. Once all your ingredients are combined, scrape the bowl and fold by hand for a few seconds.
15. Put the bowl back on the mixer and mix on high speed for no more than three seconds.
16. Scrape the batter into your prepared pan(s).
17. Bake for about an hour until the cake is well risen, deeply golden brown and has a crack running around the center of the top of the cake (pound cakes do this. It's okay). A thin knife or a skewer inserted into Said Crack should come out clean.
18. Let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes (10 minutes if you've made a small extra cake) then turn the cake out.
19. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until cool. I promise this will not give you a soggy cake, just a very moist and wonderful cake.

Optional

1. When just barely warm, you can glaze the cake with a mixture of powdered sugar, lemon juice and just a pinch of salt.

So, there you have it. Learn the science, because that’s when the magic can happen.

Thanks so much for watching and reading. I hope you have a lovely day.

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