A summery lemon buttermilk pound cake gets a subtle flavor boost from pureed sweet, earthy corn. It's unexpected and lovely, and may become your favorite pound cake!
6ozsweet white corn kernelsfresh or no-salt-added canned, drained (about 1 1/3 cups)
6ozbuttermilk at cool room temperature3/4 cups (and maybe a touch more, if necessary)f
11ozall purpose flour2 1/2 cups
2ozfinely ground white cornmeal1/3 cup plus 2 Tablespoons
1teaspoonbaking powder
¼ teaspoonbaking soda
12ozunsalted butter3 sticks, cool room temperature
18 ozgranulated sugar2 1/3 cups
1 ¼teaspoonsfine sea salt
zest of a medium lemon
5eggs, 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.
Notes
If you are not feeling the corn variation, you can easily turn this into a lemon buttermilk pound cake by leaving out the corn and cornmeal and using 10 oz (1 1/4 cups) of buttermilk and 13 oz all purpose flour.