Pound Cake

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2 c. All-purpose flour
1/2 tsp Baking powder
1/8 tsp Salt
1 c. Unsalted butter, room temperature
1 c. Sugar
3 Large eggs, room temperature
Zest from 1 lemon
2 tsp Vanilla
1/2 c. Milk, room temperature

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray two 9x5x3" loaf pans with Pam cooking spray.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.

Add 1 egg at a time, beating well after each egg. Then beat in the lemon zest and vanilla.

Add flour mixture and milk alternately, staring and ending with flour. Mixing until just incorporated.

Divide the batter into the loaf pans and bake until golden and toothpick comes out clean, approximately 45 minute. Cool cake in pan before inverting it onto a rack.

Serve by itself (warm or room temperature), your favourite ice-cream or a fruit coulis.



My comments:

My hubby has been after me to make him a pound cake. But what is a pound cake, I ask? He was shocked that I've never had pound cake before. I don't know if I've never had it or just can't remember ever eating it. Either way, I have no point of reference for comparison, so I had to rely on his tastebuds to tell me whether my cake is a "proper" pound cake. I also had difficulty choosing a recipe because without knowing how it's supposed to taste, I couldn't make judgement on whether the recipe has too much butter, to much liquid, not enough sugar. In the end, I chose this recipe from Epicurious because it had raving reviews, and everyone said to follow the recipe exactly as written because it yields the BEST pound cake ever!!

My hubby's verdict on the finshed product was..."It's a pound cake! And it's delicious!"

Hooray for me!! *grin*

It was a pretty good cake; I thoroughly enjoyed it. I only made 2 slight modifications to the original recipe. I reduced the sugar from 1.5 cups to 1 cup only and I found that plenty sweet. I might even want to try to reduce the sugar content by 1/4 cup next time I make this and serve it with ice-cream or fruit coulis. (Check out my version of raspberry coulis.) I also divided the batter into two pans (reduced cook time to 45 minute) because I was concerned that with too much batter, the cake wouldn't cook properly inside but get too brown on the outside. That's why my pound cake looks so short, but it baked perfectly, both inside and out!

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