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Easy as Pie… well, Cake… Easy Lemon Pound Cake

there are always going to be times where you wish you had some dessert around and you just don’t have anything available. Maybe it is some last-minute visitors stopping by for coffee and you just wish you had something you could put out. Or maybe you are like me and you have a teenager complaining that there are no desserts in the house and they would like something to have as a snack or dessert. At times like this you need to have an arsenal of desserts that you can put together easily, typically in under an hour and without creating a lot of fuss or mess. Sure, cookies are always an option, but for me it means dragging out a lot of ingredients, the mixer, cookie sheets and more and it means a lot of clean-up. Brownies are always a good option too, but maybe you don’t have the chocolate on hand to do them fast. it is at times like this that I often find myself turning to a trusty pound cake recipe I got from America’s Test Kitchen. it is a classic recipe, easy to put together, requires only a few ingredients and minimal clean up and produces a great and versatile dessert.

Easy Lemon Pound Cake

1 1/2 cups cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups sugar

4 eggs, room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 tablespoons grated lemon zest

2 teaspoons lemon juice

16 tablespoons (2 sticks) butter, melted and hot

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour and 8 1/2 by 4 1/2-inch loaf pan. Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.

Process the sugar, eggs, vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice together in a food processor until the ingredients are combined, about 10 seconds. With the food processor running, add in the hot melted butter in a steady stream until it is incorporated. Pour the mixture from the food processor into a large bowl.

Sift the flour mixture over the egg mixture in 3 additions, whisking to combine the ingredients after each addition until only a few streaks of flour remain. Continue to whisk the batter gently until almost no lumps remain. Try not to overmix the batter. Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth out the top. Wipe any drops of batter off the sides of the pan and gently tap the pan on the counter to release any air bubbles from the batter. Bake the cake in the oven until a toothpick in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 50 to 60 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking process.

Let the cake cool in the loaf pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Run a small knife around the edge of the cake to loosen it from the pan, then flip the cake out onto a wire rack.Turn the cake right side up and allow it to cool completely, up to 2 hours, before serving.

What you end up with in just about an hour is a moist pound cake that is not thick and dense like many can be. The process of adding the hot butter in the food processor allows the ingredients to emulsify quickly before there is a chance of anything curdling that can make the cake dense. if you prefer not to have the lemon you can simply leave the zest and juice out and get a nice, plain pound cake or you can substitute something like orange juice and zest for an orange flavor or use some almond extract and slivered almonds for an almond pound cake. you can then serve this nicely by itself or with some ice cream, serve with berries or other fruit, or even serve it in chunks with some chocolate fondue.

That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day, have a Happy Valentine’s Day and enjoy your meal!

Positively Perfect Pound Cake

28 May

We’ve done a lot of cooking and baking over the last few days, and it has given me quite a few recipes to work with. One of the things we made this past weekend was a classic pound cake recipe that I got from America’s Test Kitchen. I love just a plain piece of pound cake with a cup of coffee or maybe even a simple dollop of whipped cream or a little bit of fruit on the side. It’s a great thing to make it and doesn’t take a lot of work on your part so you could easily make one and bring it to a party or a friend’s home.

Pound Cake

1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) butter, melted and hot

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350°. Lightly coat a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan with vegetable oil spray, then line the bottom with parchment paper. Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl and set aside.

Process the sugar, eggs, and vanilla in a food processor until combined, about 10 seconds. With the machine running, pour the melted butter through the feed tube in a steady stream, about 30 seconds. Pour the mixture into a large bowl.

Sift one-third of the flour mixture over the egg mixture and whisk in. A few streaks of flour should remain. Repeat twice more with the remaining flour mixture and continue to whisk the batter gently until most of the lumps are gone. Do not over mix.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Wipe any drops of batter off the sides of the pan. Bake until a wooden skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out with just a few crumbs attached, about 50 to 60 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then flip it out onto a wire rack. Turn the cake right side up, remove the parchment paper, and allow it to cool to room temperature, about 3 hours.

There are few notes about this recipe. You could easily vary the recipe up a little bit and add some flavor to it. Adding 2 tablespoons of grated lemon zest and 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice to the sugar just before you process everything in the 2nd step will give you a nice lemon pound cake. You can do the same with a tablespoon of grated orange zest and a tablespoon of orange juice and get an orange flavor instead. If you don’t have any cake flour on hand, you can make your own replacement. For every 1 cup of cake flour, you need 7/8 of a cup of all-purpose flour and 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in order to get the same results You can serve this cake with a variety of different fruits on the side or some homemade whipped cream. Remember that blueberry sauce I made about a week ago? I used that on the cake and it tasted great.

That’s all there is for today. Next time out I held be sharing the recipe Michelle uses for her oatmeal raisin cookies. I also have some other recipes to try to share this week so keep checking back to see if there’s anything you like. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!