A Treat That's a Little Sour and a Little Sweet

Per the combination of a random citrus craving and the desire to purchase more fun baking paraphernalia, (Exhibit A: my new fluted cake pan) this week's tasty treat is a Sour Cream-Lemon Pound Cake, adapted from a recipe in Cooking Light. (I guess Cooking Light was thinking in relative terms compared to other desserts like cheesecake because at  323 calories and 10.5 g fat per serving, and 18 servings per cake, this bad boy ain't exactly about to fly away.)

A special shout-out goes out to my good friend Marissa, who did me the kindness of getting married just so that she could get cool new kitchen appliances and I could inherit her old electric hand mixer! (Yup, that's how I'm telling the story.)

Fact: Most delicious desserts begin with a pile of butter :)

Ingredients:

One 9-10" fluted cake pan or tube pan

Cooking spray (canola oil style, not olive oil)

Dry breadcrumbs to coat the inside of the pan (approximately 3 tablespoons, maybe more)

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cups butter, softened (1 1/2 sticks -- making Julia Child proud) :)

2 1/2 cups granulated sugar

2 teaspoons lemon extract

3 large eggs

1 1/2 tablespoons grated lemon rind (It will take about 2 lemons to produce this much)

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, divided in to two sets of 2 tablespoons

1 (8 oz.) tub of low-fat sour cream

1 cup powdered confectioners sugar (a.k.a. loves-to-go-everywhere sugar)

Cake Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. (Actually, I wouldn't do this yet, because for me it just made my apartment hot because I didn't grate the lemon first and my oven only takes 6 minutes to preheat. So, do this at some point, but it doesn't have to be first.) :)
2. Coat inside of pan with cooking spray and dust with breadcrumbs. (I found it difficult to distribute the breadcrumbs evenly just with my fingers, so after dusting the crumbs on, I picked up the pan and swirled it around to distribute the crumbs more evenly, and gently dumped the excess out of the pan.)
3. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Mix well with a whisk. Set aside for now.
4. In a large bowl, beat the butter at medium speed until light and fluffy.
5. Gradually add the granulated sugar and lemon extract. (I added the sugar about 1/2 cup at a time, to make it easier to mix in. Thus making 5 total additions.) 
6. Add each egg, one at a time, and blending well in between each addition.
7. Toss in the grated lemon rind and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and beat for 30 seconds. (This is when it really starts smelling good.)
8. Slowly add the dry flour mixture to the sugar mixture, alternating with adding the sour cream. When combining, beat at a low speed and begin and end with the dry flour mixture.
9. Spoon batter into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour and 10 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean.
10. Cool pan for 10 minutes on a wire rack. Then remove the cake from the pan and cool completely on the wire rack.

 

Icing Directions:

1. Combine 2 tablespoons of lemon juice with the powdered confectioners sugar.
2. *Fun Part Alert!* Drizzle the glaze over the top of the cake. And watch it make the most pretty, delicious mess you've ever seen.

 

Let the glaze set for a few minutes, and enjoy!