Lemon Pound Cake Recipe

Name: Lemon Pound Cake Recipe
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 50 min
Ingredients: 2½ cup / 300g Flour; 1 tablespoon Baking powder (follow instruction on packaging); 10 tablespoon / 150g Butter; 4 medium Eggs; 3 tablespoons Honey (or sweetener of choice); 2 Orange juice; 2 Lemon zest and juice; Ø8.5" / Ø21cm Baking tray

Life gave too much lemons or just looking for an easy cake? Let’s whip up this easy lemon pound cake and give life a brake!

Pound cakes are the grandfathers of all the cakes. A grandfather who has love children all over the world. These offsprings may not be similar looking or tasting cakes but all have been originated from the same ancestor, although differ in every other feature.

It goes as far as pound cakes aren’t even pound cakes anymore, save in name.

Pound cakes as the name implies are cakes made from pounds. Originally one pound of every ingredient was used to make the batter. Although in Germany these kinds of cakes are called quarter cakes as every ingredient made only one quarter of the whole.

This brings us to the ingredients that are historically sparse. Only four ingredients are needed to make up the original pound cake. Hence the name of quart cake in German as well because only flour, butter, eggs, and sugar was used in equal parts to create the pound cake.

Although, it isn’t among us since medieval times, as sugar wasn’t abundant prior discovering America, but it is still with us since the 1700s. Even then it was modified with various ingredients, substituting the wheat flour with corn as a cheaper alternative and baptized as Indian pound cake.

Given its plainness not only Germany but almost every country with a slight affection towards wheat has its variation of this simple dessert modified with nuts, dried fruit, frosting or whatever came to people’s mind.

As culinary practices evolved during the years so did the pound cake. At its roots, it doesn’t come with any leavening agent thus being a robust and dense cake by nature. This fact though hasn’t stopped anybody sprinkling a bit of baking powder into the batter resulting a bit airier texture.

From there it wasn’t a big leap adding yeast and making Gugelhupf but that’s another story entirely. Or is it?

As this recipe being a sugar free recipe can’t include a pound sugar nor would be a wise thing pouring a quarter of the whole mass in honey or any other sweetener into the batter. Sweet flavors should be used sparingly and only as much as necessary to our taste. Otherwise our body gets used to it and craves for more and more inducing a vicious cycle.

But let’s not steer into the human behavioral territory as we have a cake to make.

Pound cakes are forgiving creatures grown big on the approximate measurements of cups and tablespoons so we shouldn’t be afraid to make mistakes because we can’t.

This particular pound cake recipe is a lemon pound cake recipe so we must add some lemon or lemon flavoring along the way that acidity will hinder the baking powder ability to raise the bread.

In fact, every fruit we use in baking has this effect, some are more than the others. Luckily the acid dwarfing effects can be countered either by the mixing technique or adding baking soda to the baking powder. More about the differences of baking powder and baking soda in the Knowledgebase.

So, if the cake doesn’t come up nice and spongy then it’s because of we have a wrong technique or not enough leavening agent for the acidity of our ingredients. Worry not though, as it will turn out to be edible all the same and pound cakes supposed to be dense anyway.

Ingredients

2½ cup / 300g Flour
1 tablespoon Baking powder (follow instruction on packaging)
10 tablespoon / 150g Butter
4 medium Eggs
3 tablespoons Honey (or sweetener of choice)
2 Orange juice
2 Lemon zest and juice

Kitchen utensils

Ø8.5″ / Ø21cm Baking tray

How to make Lemon pound cake

Whisk the butter and honey on high speed until creamy.
Beat the egg whites until hard.
Mix flour with baking powder.
Work together the yolks and the beaten butter then add ¼ of flour mix.
Add ¼ of lemon juice to the batter.
Add ¼ of lemon zest to the batter
Add ¼ of the orange juice to the batter.
Alternately work together the orange juice, lemon juice, lemon zest and the remaining flour until we get an even texture.
To add extra volume to the cake fold the beaten egg whites in by hand.
Pour the batter into the baking form.
Put it into a 350°F / 180°C preheated oven for 40 minutes. Check with the toothpick test if it’s baked properly then transfer it to a wire rack to cool.

Enjoy!

What’s the difference between a banana bread and a pound cake? Let’s taste it out:

5 from 6 votes