Lemon pound cake

In the May issue of Everyday Food, there is an entire spread devoted to pound cakes.  Mmmmm...pound cake. Now I like a good pound cake, but I had never baked one for fear it was too complicated.  It turns out that pound cakes are really quite simple to make, and seeing the ingredients and directions in print was all the inspiration I needed to tackle one.

The first step is to cream the butter and sugar together for eight full minutes.  This is the reason industrial-strength mixers (in kitchen sizes!) were invented.

I took my flavor cue from the Everyday Food spread with their citrus-glazed pound cake which called for orange zest/juice and lemon zest/juice in the cake batter and the icing glaze.  I was all out of orange juice and oranges, so I used only lemon juice and zest.

However, this makes absolutely no sense to me because I had to go to the store for the lemon. Why didn't I pick up an orange while I was there?  Sometimes, I have no idea what is going on in my own life.  Sigh.

Along with being the first time I baked a pound cake, it was also the first time I ever zested anything. Obviously, this was a big day for me.

The massive amount of butter in the cake makes it really moist. In fact, it kept bubbling around the perimeter.  This made me think that the cake wasn't done, and I ended up over baking it. 

Note to self: the next time you bake a pound cake, ignore the butter bubbles and take the cake out after 65 minutes. 

This was a really great, and easy, dessert.  Make the lemon version, or check out the May issue of Everyday Food to see more variations.  Enjoy!