Italian Pound Cake
By
Jim Frigyes
@Jfrigyes
12
My Nonna (grandmother), Nonno (grandfather), & my mom love anything lemon - they brought over the start of lemon trees from Italy & we grew lemons while growing up & still to this day so we always had on hand. This was Nonna's go to cake when making sweets.
If you don't care for lemon - leave out the lemon extract, lemon zest & lemon glaze. Increase the vanilla extract to 4 teaspoons or use 2 teaspoons of another extract like almond.
If you don't care for lemon - leave out the lemon extract, lemon zest & lemon glaze. Increase the vanilla extract to 4 teaspoons or use 2 teaspoons of another extract like almond.
Blue Ribbon Recipe
We love a lemon cake recipe, and this refreshing, moist lemon cake is delicious! Packed with lemon flavor, this lemon cake recipe isn't overly sweet which we loved. This would be great for a brunch, after a special occasion, or maybe even a special treat with a cup of morning coffee. So good!
Ingredients
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1 1/2 ccake flour
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1 1/2 call-purpose flour
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1/4 tspbaking powder
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1 tspsalt
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8 ozcream cheese, softened at room temperature
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2 stick(1 cup) butter, softened at room temperature
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1/2 cshortening
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3 cwhite sugar
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6eggs, at room temperature
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1 Tbsplemon zest - add to batter
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1 Tbsplemon extract
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2 tspvanilla extract
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1/2 cmilk, at room temperature (depending on weather you may only need 1/4 cup milk - look at consistency, should be thick but smooth)
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LEMON GLAZE
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1 1/2 cconfectioners' sugar
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1 Tbspfresh lemon juice
How to Make Italian Pound Cake
- * Do not preheat oven. Butter & flour a 10" bundt pan - set aside.
- Sift together flours, salt, & baking powder; then set aside.
- Using mixer - cream together the butter, shortening, sugar & cream cheese until light & fluffy. *If using a stand mixer - let this beat together for awhile while you are preparing the next steps.
- Add extracts & mix to combine. Begin to whisk in eggs - 2 at a time making sure they fully incorporate before adding the next set of eggs.
- Whisk in flour mixture alternating between the milk. Always beginning with the flour & ending with the flour. Mixing just until incorporated - over mixing at this point will make for a tough cake.
- Pour batter into prepared pan, put pan in oven & set temperature to 350 degrees. Bake cake between 1 & 1.5 hours or until cake tester comes out clean. Begin watching cake after 45 minutes - if top begins to over brown - tent with foil for the remaining baking time. Begin to test cake at the 50-minute mark. Depending on your oven (gas/electric) the cake will cook faster/slower. You don't want to overcook this cake or it will be very dry & crumbly.
- Allow cake to cool in pan for 15-30 minutes then remove from pan & cool on wire rack.
- Once cool - mix powdered sugar & lemon juice together & drizzle over the top of the cake.
- Notes:
*You can cook this in any pan you like - doesn't have to be a bundt pan - you can use 2 loaf pans too.
*You can use all butter in place of shortening if you like.
*If you do not have cake flour you can use all, all-purpose flour instead.
*When testing your cake - if a few crumbs stick to your toothpick/tester it's good to go -- just as long as there is no raw batter stuck to it.
