This was a rainy day cake. I mixed all the ingredients together while it poured outside my windows and the sky looked dark and mean. By the time I put it in the oven the rain had stopped and the sun peaked out so that I could open the windows and breathe in that lovely scent of spring.
Every bite of this cake is lemony, light, moist, and sweet. It’s a really good cake. If you wanted to you could make a lemony glaze or syrup to drizzle over the top but I think it’s sweet enough the way it is, with just a dusting of powdered sugar.
By the way, pound cake refers to a type of cake traditionally made with a pound of each of four ingredients: flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. Since that would make a beast of a cake many pound cake recipes are adapted. I halved all the ingredients from the original of this recipe to fit my 8 cup bundt pan. The only thing I didn’t reduce was the lemon zest and juice giving the cake a wonderfully bright, lemony flavour. Zing!
Sour Cream and Lemon Pound Cake
adapted from Epicurious
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups all purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1.5 cups sugar
- 3 eggs, room temperature
- 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- powdered sugar, to dust
Directions
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease 8-cup tube/Bundt pan. Dust pan with cake flour; tap out excess flour.
- Sift flour, baking soda and salt into medium bowl. Beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Gradually add sugar and beat 5 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating just until combined after each addition. Beat in lemon juice and peel. Using a rubber spatula, mix in dry ingredients. Mix in sour cream. Transfer batter to prepared pan.
- Bake cake until tester inserted near center comes out clean, about 55 minutes. Let cake cool in pan on rack 15 minutes. Cut around cake in pan. Turn out cake.
- Carefully turn cake right side up on rack and cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired. (Can be prepared 2 days ahead. Wrap in foil and let stand at room temperature).
My friend Liz sent me a recipe a few months back with a note attached that said (I’m paraphrasing) “Oh my god, you should make this immediately, it’s amazing!”
I bookmarked it and had kind of forgotten about it until last week when I remembered St. Patrick’s Day was right around the corner. Instead of making the full cake recipe, I decided to adapt it to make cupcakes.
If you’re adapting a cake recipe into cupcakes, here are a few tips, from The Kitchn.
These little cupcakes are glorious with a rich, cream cheese-based frosting. They’re soft and spongy cakes, due to all that lovely Guinness-y moisture. Next time I make them I think I’ll add some Baileys to the frosting in place of some of the cream – that, my friends, would be pure perfection.
If you’re going out boozing on St. Paddy’s Day, I think you should probably line your stomach with several of these before you go. Okay, maybe that’s a bad idea. Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. And do make these cupcakes. Kapeesh?
Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes
adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Guinness Cake
FOR THE CUPCAKES
- 8.5 fl oz Guinness
- 9oz unsalted butter (2 sticks plus 2 tbsp)
- 3 oz cocoa (6 tbsp)
- 14 oz sugar (2 cups)
- 5 fl oz sour cream
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
- 9 oz all purpose flour, sifted (2 cups)
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
FOR THE TOPPING:
- 10 oz cream cheese
- 5 oz confectioner’s sugar (1 cup)
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and butter and put cupcake liners into molds.
- Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter – in spoons or slices – and heat until the butter’s melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and baking soda.
- Pour the cake batter into the cupcake holders and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake.
- When the cupcakes have cooled completely make the icing. Lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth, sieve over the confectioner’s sugar and then beat them both together. Or do this in a processor, putting the unsieved confectioner’s sugar in first and blitz to remove lumps before adding the cheese.
- Add the cream and beat again until it makes a spreadable consistency. Ice the top of the black cupcakes so that they resemble the frothy top of the famous pint.
Serves: Makes 36 cupcakes
Tea time. Does the idea of it make you giggle a bit? Cos it does me and I’m British. I love how “tea time” is one of those things that people really think of when they think of Britain.
Here’s the thing about tea and the British: everyone drinks it (except my sister who is crazy) but historically it’s been separated by class. When I think of tea the way I drink it, I’m thinking of the builder’s cup of tea. I don’t want to go overboard in trying to explain that to non-Brits but suffice to say it just means your bog-standard, normal, no-frills cup of tea, made with a tea bag, served in a mug.
Afternoon tea, on the other hand is something you might get at the Ritz or if you’re well to do, maybe it’s something you have on a regular basis. In high society, tea time involves all sorts of sandwiches, cakes, biscuits, and high-falooting tea cups and loose leaf tea.
Lavender tea cake would be totally appropriate at a proper “afternoon tea”. Shall we all get together and have one? We can wear posh frocks, talk politely about the weather, nibble on cucumber sandwiches and munch (in a ladylike fashion) on this cake. I promise it will be awesome.
This cake is so lovely. I wondered about the lavender being overbearing or odd for people but it’s just wonderful. It adds a kick of spice and flavour that combines perfectly with the glaze.
I am often fine with omitting glazes and the like but here I’d urge you not to. It’s so easy to make anyway – just whizz some powdered sugar, vanilla extract and water together and drizzle all over – and it really adds the right amount of sweetness. If you’re lucky enough to have left the cake in the oven a few minutes too long like I did then you’ll get a gorgeous crunch to boot.
Lavender Tea Cake
from old fashioned living
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 5 tablespoons butter, softened
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg white
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup plain or lowfat yogurt
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh lavender leaves
Glaze:
- 1/3 cup sifted powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon water
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat granulated sugar, butter, and vanilla until well-blended.
- Add egg and egg white, one at a time, beat well after each addition.
- Sift flour and combine with the baking powder, baking soda, and salt; stir well.
- Add the flour mixture to sugar mixture alternately with yogurt, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Stir in lavender.
- Pour the batter into a greased 9×5 inch loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour or until a sharp knife or cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
- To prepare glaze, combine powdered sugar and remaining ingredients. Spread on the warm cake. Cool in pan 20 minutes on a wire rack before removing from the pan.
