The Best Lemon Pound Cake | For Serious Lemon Lovers

Watch my best lemon pound cake web story here.

 

Hi Jenni, I love this recipe so much. Thanks to you I got the highest grade for my external exam using this recipe.

Reader and Culinary Student Donna

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 This Recipe So Great

The key to making the best any-kind-of-pound-cake is to layer in the main flavor/s 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 to Make

Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make the best and most lemony lemon pound cake you’ll ever taste.

• unsalted butter: make sure it’s cool butter. You don’t want it soft, just pliable. Keep the temp between 65-68F.
• sugar: regular granulated. It’s the action of creaming the butter together with the crystalline sugar that tears holes in the butter, which in turn allows for an even rise and crumb once the rest of the ingredients are added
• fine sea salt: you can also use table salt. If you sub with kosher salt, you’ll have to use a touch more since kosher salt crystals are larger and don’t pack together as tightly
• lemon zest: use a Microplane to get small, feathery pieces of zest.
• lemon extract: substitute lemon oil if you like. But only use about 3 drops since it’s more concentrated than lemon extract
• eggs: I use large eggs. Take them out of the fridge a good 45 minutes to an hour before baking
• cake flour: you can also use all-purpose flour. Your cake won’t have quite as fine a texture, but the difference is very slight
• baking powder: leavener
• baking soda: the baking soda is here primarily to counteract the acidity from all the lemon components. Make sure your baking soda doesn’t have any lumps in it
• Greek yogurt: full fat or low fat. Don’t sub fat-free. You can also use buttermilk if you have it, or a mixture of the two
• lemon juice: Provides the rest of the liquid as well as tart, lemon flavor
• turmeric: 1/2 teaspoon provides a sunny lemon color without any flavor that I can detect, and my palate is pretty sensitive. You could also use a few drops of yellow food coloring or just leave coloring out altogether. Your call.

Procedure

Like most butter cakes, this one is made using the creaming method.

In short, here are the steps:

1. cream together butter, sugar, salt, lemon zest, and extract. Fat carries flavor, so it makes sense to add the salt, zest, and extract at the same time you add the butter
2. Whip eggs well then drizzle them into the batter, a little at a time.
3. Whisk together dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
4. Whisk together the Greek yogurt, lemon juice, and milk (or buttermilk in place of lemon juice and milk)
5. Alternate adding the dry and wet ingredients in 5 additions, beginning and ending with dry.
6. Scrape batter evenly into your prepared pan.

Q & A

If you have questions about this post or recipe, don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can leave a comment on the post and I will get back to you within about 24 hours.

If your question is more urgent, please shoot me an email, and I will respond within 4 hours, unless I’m asleep.

A Note About Measurements

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. If you’re unsure, please read my post about how to use a food scale.

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.