Lemon Zest Pound Cake
A variant of Pound Cake — An ingredient branch from the authored reference, with its selected additions included in the quantities and method.
Contains gluten, dairy, egg
Restrictions
Containsgluten · dairy · eggIt is in an ingredient you cannot leave out.
Diets
VegetarianPescatarianNo porkNo alcohol · check
Worked out from the ingredient list. It knows nothing about brands, shared equipment or cross contamination, and it is not a certification — if you have an allergy, you still have to read the label.
Ingredients
Servings:
| 1 cup | butter (room temperature) |
| 1 cup | sugar |
| 4 unit | eggs (room temperature) |
| 2 cup | flour |
| ½ tsp | salt |
| 2 tsp | vanilla extract |
| 1 unit | lemon (zest only) |
Steps
- mix8 minmedium-high, longer than feels rightRub the zest of the listed lemon into the sugar. Cream this sugar with the butter and salt for the full eight minutes, scraping the bowl twice, until nearly white and fluffy. This cake relies on that incorporated air for its rise; do not add lemon juice.
- mix5 minone egg at a time, fully absorbed+ eggs singly with the vanilla, each beaten in completely — four eggs into a butter emulsion is the recipe's high-wire act; if it starts to look curdled, a spoonful of the flour brings it back
- fold3 minlowest speed, then by hand+ flour in three additions, finished with a spatula — the mixer built structure for eight minutes and can now destroy it in one; the last streaks disappear by hand
- bake65 min325°F, buttered loaf pan, tester cleanlow and long — pound cake is dense by design and needs the gentle oven to cook through before the crust overdarkens; the top will split down the middle, which is not a flaw but the signature, the crumb pushing through its own crust
- rest20 min15 in the pan, then on a rackbefore slicing thick — and the flavor is a day-two story: wrapped overnight, the butter redistributes and the crumb turns from good to velvet; this cake was built for keeping, which is why it survived three centuries