Pound cake comes together easily with few ingredients and is perfect for spring gatherings- simple meets rich.
If you do not like your previous pound cake results – here are a few tips that the great pound cake maker you know may have kept secret.
Start with a tested recipe.
Yes, the internet puts recipes at your fingertips, but…have they been tested. Many sites offer recipes from people who log on and may mistype or leave off an important detail. Go to a trusted source, one that tests recipes such as of course our site (www.midstatemills.com) or other branded sites. We test every recipe more than once and edit so we have fewer (I won’t say never!) mistakes.
Use brand name ingredients.
No kidding, it makes a difference. Flour is the main ingredient so using Southern flour milled from soft wheat is vital to great cakes. Try Southern Biscuit All-Purpose for your cakes and see the difference.
Also, grocery store brand sugar is often a finer granulation than the name brands. The finer sugar does not have the crystals, more about this below, needed to leaven the cake. It will really show up as a problem with pound cakes.
And use real butter, margarine contains more water.
Creaming takes time.
Don’t skip the beating of the butter and sugar. The sugar crystals are sharp and run through the butter creating tiny bubbles in the butter that make the cake airy. The butter has to be room temperature and the sugar needs to be added gradually for this to occur.
The color of the butter actually gets lighter because there is so much air whipped in.
Then add the eggs, also room temperature, slowly so that the eggs contribute to the lightness as well. This cake rises because these steps are followed.
Bake just enough.
Cakes are done often 10 minutes before the stated time because ovens are a bit hotter than stated on the thermometer. Watch yours closely, but don’t open the door! Cooling the cake as it bakes will not allow it to rise enough and set.
Now go bake, and add the glaze to the warm cake, it makes this cake moist and gives it a lemon tartness.
Lemon Pound Cake
Serves 12.
3 cups Southern Biscuit All-Purpose Flour
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs, room temperature
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 cup sour cream, room temperature
2 tablespoons grated fresh lemon zest
Glaze
1 ½ cup lemon juice
1 ½ cup sugar
Preheat the oven to 325°. Coat a 10-inch tube pan or bundt pan with shortening and then dust with flour.
Whisk together flour and baking soda. Set aside.
Beat butter until creamy and smooth and then gradually, while mixer is running on low speed, beat in sugar. Continue to beat for 3 minutes or until light. Beat in eggs one at a time beating one minute after each addition. Stir in lemon extract and lemon juice.
Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the sour cream. Begin and end with flour and mix just enough to combine. (You do not want to over mix after the flour has been added.)
Fold in the lemon zest.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth using a spatula. Bake for 75 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the cake is clean when removed.
Cool in pan on a rack for 20 minutes and then remove from the pan to a cooling rack.
To glaze: Combine lemon juice and sugar and bring to a boil just until sugar dissolves.
Brush onto warm cake.
Cool cake completely.
