- Hey guys!
Today I'm going to show
you how to make a fantastic
lemon pound cake recipe
using my fresh lemons that we just picked
this morning from the tree.
The first thing we're
going to do is going to add
some well-softened butter
into a big bowl here.
It's really important that
the butter is really soft
because that's just gonna
help when we start to beat
the sugar and the eggs
and everything becomes
really well-incorporated.
The nice thing about this pound cake,
it has such a fantastic texture to it
and you get that really
fine texture by making sure
all of your ingredients
are really well mixed.
Then we are going to add
which looks like a ton of sugar, I know.
This is two and a half
cups, now don't be alarmed
because we are going to be adding
so many more ingredients to this,
that at the end of it, it's
actually not that much.
We're going to be adding six eggs,
we're going to be adding
almost three cups of flour
so you do need enough
sugar to make sure that
everything is well flavored.
We're going to just beat this up.
(high-pitched whirring)
We're just looking for
this mixture to become
nice and fluffy, making
sure that all that butter
is well-incorporated with the sugar.
This is all we need, just
like this, looking good.
Now we're going to add our eggs.
My other tip for you,
when it comes to the eggs,
is to make sure that
they're room temperature,
so if you forgot to take the eggs out
and you wanted to make
this cake, totally get it,
happens to me, too,
you can take your eggs and
actually just submerge them
in some warm water, just for five minutes.
It's amazing what that does.
They'll just come right
up to room temperature.
What we're going to do
is we're going to crack
all these eggs in this bowl,
and you'll see why in a minute.
It makes it a lot easier
when you go to mix it.
Let's see, two... bing.
I always get a lot of questions
what kind of eggs I use,
I just use the jumbo
eggs because I find that
they're better for baking,
you just get more egg
with every egg, that make sense?
Okay, so now that all of
our eggs are ready to go,
this is gonna make this
so much easier because
we really want to be
adding one egg at a time
as we're beating it,
and then you don't have to stop down
to actually crack the egg.
So you see that, I'm just
gonna add an egg, stir it
and then add an egg.
(high-pitched whirring)
This is looking good,
we're just going to scrape it down a bit,
make sure all that butter
is well-incorporated
into our batter.
The next thing that we are
going to do is add our lemons.
We're going to take one lemon
and get about a tablespoon of lemon zest.
This is where I have
really learned my lesson,
several times, because
oftentimes, I'll put too much zest
into a pound cake like this,
or I'll try to add a little of the juice
and what ends up happening
is it ends up not rising.
The acidity in the lemon
juice actually reacts
with the baking soda and then you end up
with a very flat, dense cake.
The other thing that it does is because
there's so much sugar in the lemon juice,
it starts to brown the top
of the cake a lot faster
than if you didn't have it in it
so I say a tablespoon of
zest is gonna do the trick
for a very nice, light flavor
and then we're gonna add
a lot more lemon flavor
to the frosting, to the
glaze that we're gonna put
on top of this cake.
We're just gonna fold that
in, just a quick stir.
Okay, now we're ready
for our dry ingredients
so we're just gonna set this aside.
You're just gonna take a fine mesh sieve.
I know, I usually don't like cake recipes
where you have to sift the flour
but in this situation, it
does make a difference.
You are gonna end up with a
nice, fine texture to this cake
which just makes it
really nice and fluffy.
Then we are also going
to add a quarter teaspoon
of baking soda, just a
little bit because we have
so many eggs in there, we
really don't need that much
and then we're also going to use
about a teaspoon of salt
to get in there. Okay.
Then here is the secret
weapon, sour cream.
The sour cream is going to
create a really delicious,
moist cake, and we are going to alternate
mixing in the dry ingredients
with the sour cream,
so here we go.
Why we're doing this, I
have to tell you the story
of this pound cake recipe
because it's a bit of
family lore at our house.
This recipe is actually
inspired by my grandmother,
Moni, who had a really
fantastic pound cake recipe
and this recipe's very close to that.
And my grandfather, at the time,
he was selling those big Hobart mixers
that you find in restaurants.
He had to demonstrate the mixer
so people could see
what it could really do.
He would actually demonstrate
the pound cake recipe
in the mixer, so after the demo was done,
they would bake the cake
and the cake, apparently,
was so delicious, that it
really helped sell the mixer.
I don't know if this story is true or not,
my father swears that it is,
my aunt says, "Hmm, I'm
not so sure about that."
I think it's a cute story
and I hope it's true because,
hey, this pound cake is fantastic.
It certainly could sell a
mixer or two if you ask me.
All right, we're almost done.
So that's looking good.
Now we are going to transfer
it into our bundt pan.
I know that, traditionally,
pound cake is usually made
in those big loaf pans,
but I have found with this cake,
because there is so much batter,
it's better to put it in
something like this that's deep
so that the whole cake
can actually rise up.
And this is how my grandmother
used to do it, too,
so sticking with tradition.
Then we are going to just spoon it in,
and I have sprayed this bundt pan
with some non-stick baking spray,
which is another critical
part to the process
because we want to make
sure that this cake
springs right out when
we go to release it.
This is ready for the oven.
I'm going to go step inside and pop it in
and we'll let it bake for
anywhere from 35 to 40 minutes,
just until a toothpick comes out clean.
While our cake is in the oven,
we can get on with making the glaze
that's going to go on top of our cake.
So we're going to just
take some powdered sugar,
I have about a cup here,
and if you've missed any
of these measurements
or if I forgot to say them,
which is probably more likely,
all the recipes are in the description
or you can click the link, as
well, and head to my website.
Then we're gonna take about
two tablespoons of heavy cream.
Then, we want to whisk this up
so that it's really smooth and
doesn't have any lumps in it.
We want to make sure it's nice and smooth
so that's just gonna
create a really pretty
glaze on our cake.
Just gonna set that aside for a second
and we're gonna take our lemon,
and this is why I like this recipe.
We've zested the lemon, now
we can use the lemon juice
but if you ever cook and you
have these leftover lemons
after you've zested them,
they're really great to drop
into a water bottle as you
head off to work or school.
Lemons have so many great
health benefits that
it's good to get a little
extra citrus when you can.
This is my new favorite gadget.
Can we just talk about this for minute?
I just saw this at the store,
it is the cutest little thing.
It's a lemon squeezer.
You put your lemon in here,
you squeeze away
and it catches all the pits for and seeds.
And then it has this cute little spout,
which we're gonna need,
where you can just measure it out.
We're gonna need about a tablespoon.
That's about a tablespoon right there.
Maybe another half. There.
This is gonna give us all
that wonderful lemon flavor
to our frosting.
So now, all I need is a cake.
Wow! I like this outdoor kitchen magic.
Now we have our fully baked cake,
you can see it's completely cooled
and ready to be decorated.
All right, so, if our
baking spray is working,
we're gonna go like this.
Let's see. Should just release.
Ta da! There we go!
Looking good.
Now our cake is ready
for a little decoration
so we're gonna go back to our glaze here,
it's all ready to go,
and we are going to just ladle the glaze
on top of the cake, and see
how it starts to drip down?
That's exactly what we want.
So you kind of want to get the top of it
and let gravity do its thing
and you're gonna have a really
pretty little pound cake.
You're just going to go all the way around
on top of the cake.
That's why it's good
to do it on this rack,
because see what a mess it makes? (laughs)
But that's okay, it's part of the allure.
Then, we're just gonna finish it off with
a little bit of lemon zest,
just on the top.
Now, this next part is completely optional
but I do think it's very pretty,
and especially since we're
out here in the garden.
This is some lemon thyme.
There's a variety of thyme
that grows, that's lemon thyme
and when you snip it off and smell it,
it has the most incredible fragrance.
Smells like lemons,
it's a combination of the
sort of sweet and savory.
I like this one because it's variegated
so you can see the little
lemon, sort of, striae effect
in the green leaf, think it's so pretty.
So we are just gonna top our cake
with some of this lemon thyme.
Lemon thyme is really easy to grow,
you can actually just grow it in pots
if you have a nice sunny area
or you can also sometimes
find it at a farmers market,
I have seen it at a farmers market.
Okay, so now, we do want
to sort of let this set
before we serve it but what we can do
is transfer it to our serving platter.
I like to serve it just
on a nice cutting board
or you could use a cake stand
but I like the cutting board because then
you can just cut right on it, too.
Then we're just going to
transfer it very carefully
onto our cutting board, there.
There you have it, lemon pound cake.
I hope you guys give this one a try
and let me know what you think.
If you want to know more about how to grow
your own lemons, you
can click the annotation
and head over to see
my video on lemon tips.
If you'd like another recipe using lemons,
you can also head over to my food channel
and watch a great tutorial
on how to make your own
homemade lemonade.
All right you guys, I'll
see you back here next time.
Thanks, bye.
(upbeat scat music)
