Lemon Pound Cake

I made this cake recently for my Mum's birthday. I had two reasons for making it, one of which is somewhat selfish. Firstly, Mum absolutely loves lemon flavoured sweets and so this was my primary motivation for choosing this recipe. The other, was because I am on a self-induced chocolate ban until Christmas Day. Had I made a chocolate cake instead, I wouldn't have been able to sample any to make sure it was up to scratch. There was method in my madness. As for the chocolate ban, I have been (chocolate) sober now for 4 days and I'm going strong, only 41 more days to go. Wish me luck!

This recipe is adapted from Bill Granger's Lemon Pound Cake recipe from his Every Day Cookbook. It makes for a delicious and dense buttery cake with a hint of lemon. It produces a cake that celebrates summer. Enjoy x


Lemon Pound Cake w/ Lemon Butter Icing
adapted from Bill Granger's recipe: Lemon Pound Cake

ingredients
For cake:
250g (9oz) unsalted butter, softened
250g (9oz) caster ( superfine ) sugar
2 Teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
1 Teaspoon natural vanilla extract or 1/2 vanilla bean pod scraped
4 eggs
250g (9oz/2 cups) self raising flour, sifted
For lemon butter icing:
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
110g (3 3/4 oz) icing sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons lemon juice ( or more depending on your personal taste - like to add 1/2 a lemon juiced and add a little extra icing sugar to even out the consistency)
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest

method
For cake:
1. Preheat your oven to 180'C (350'F/Gas 4).
2. Grease & line the base of an 8 inch (20cm) square cake tin with baking paper ( make sure it is fairly deep).
3. Beat the butter & sugar together until pale and creamy. Then, beat in the vanilla & lemon zest. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition, until just combined.
4. Fold in the sifted flour in several batches until well combined.
5. Spoon into your prepared tin and bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a skewer come out clean.
6. Cover loosely with foil if it begins to brown too quickly.
7. Cool for 10-15 minutes in the tin before turning it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
8. Once cool, ice with lemon butter icing and top with extra lemon zest if desired.

For lemon butter icing:
Beat the butter with beaters until very soft and pale. Next, beat in the icing sugar , lemon juice and zest. Spread over the cake and enjoy!