Lemon Pound Cake

Mini pound cakes, what else could be cuter!?  Tender pound cake with a lemon glaze makes for the perfect summer cake recipe!

Pound cake was created in England in the 1700’s.  At the time it consisted of a pound of butter, sugar, flour and eggs equaling four pounds of cake.  Now that’s a lot of cake!  It was enough to share with multiple families!  Nowadays we’ve decreased the 1:1:1:1 ratio and modern day pound cakes are way less than four pounds!  Original pound cakes were leavened by air trapped in the creamed sugar and butter.  Current day pound cake recipes usually call for baking powder to help make them rise.  Pound cakes are popular in the southern United States, but honestly who can resist a good pound cake?!

 

The recipe:

Mini Lemon Pound Cakes

Lemon Pound Cake

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 oz (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• zest of 1 lemon
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 4 large eggs
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Lemon Glaze

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine butter, sugar and lemon zest.  Cream for 6 minutes, until very light and fluffy.             
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt.
4. Once the butter is creamed, add lemon juice and vanilla extract.  Mix for another minute.
5. Add eggs one egg at a time, finishing with the egg yolk.
6. Add flour to creamed butter mixture, be careful not to over mix!!
7. Grease mini loaf pans and scoop batter into each pan.  Bake for 10 minutes, rotate and bake until lightly golden, about 10 more minutes depending on size of pan. 
8. While cakes are cooling make the lemon glaze.  Combine powdered sugar and lemon juice in small bowl and whisk together.  Drizzle over tops of cakes once cooled.