Starbucks has an awesome lemon pound cake with lemon icing. If you can get it, try it. It’s super moist, yet dense, with a great lemon flavor. I have to say, Jay is the one who got me into it in the first place. Before he insisted I try a piece of his, I never really ate or bought anything but beverages and some travel/coffee mugs at the ‘Bucks.  Then I got my mother into the lemon pound cake. Trouble is, they don’t always have it. Bastards. It’s like only served on every other Monday during a full-moon or something. Their old-fashioned chocolate donuts are also out-of-this-world, if you see those, get one. They’re rarer than the pound cake. I haven’t tried any other edible items there, mainly because I recently tried a vanilla cupcake… and it was so disappointing I couldn’t put it into words. Seriously. Awful. I almost cried. It was that bad. The cake was eh, and the frosting was horrible. If you want cupcakes- stick with a bakery. If you want good coffee- go to Starbucks. Good coffee, pound cake & donuts that is (I’m not going to pretend that just because I made this, and it’s delicious, that I’ll never buy the lemon pound cake at SB’s ever again).

Finished cakes

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Thankfully, in my efforts to attempt to recreate this wonderful lemon pound cake, I didn’t have to struggle or experiment much. I found (thanks to Foodbuzz!) the Homegrown Housewife’s recipe for it on my first try. Her idea behind it was the same as mine- that elusive Starbucks cake. I have a lot of organic lemons sitting around still (thanks to both this recipe and the fact that it’s homemade iced tea weather) and a huge craving for this pound cake, so I decided to make it. A cake like this is so easy to make and yet with the citrus-y taste it’s also perfect for this season, along with this olive oil cake I made a while back. Pound cakes also travel well, and usually don’t have lots of frosting that can attract bugs, so it’s good for barbecues and picnics and summer parties. This cake does indeed have a glaze, but you could make this cake ahead of time, bring it to the party unglazed, and then glaze it there right before eating.

• 1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 Tablespoons salted butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon pure lemon extract
• Juice from two medium lemons (approx 1/3 cup)
• ½ cup vegetable oil

Glaze

• 1 cup plus 1 teaspoon powdered sugar
• 2 Tablespoons whole milk
• ½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grease a 9×5 loaf pan well.
3. In a medium bowl mix flour, baking soda, and baking powder.
4. In mixing bowl or stand mixer, cream butter.  Add sugar, eggs, vanilla, lemon extract, lemon juice and oil until mixed well.
5. Add dry ingredient mixture to your mixer and blend until smooth. No not over mix.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 45-50 minutes or until testing stick comes out clean. Edges should be a dark golden brown and will crisp upon cooling.
7. Let cake cool before icing.
8. For icing blend powdered sugar, milk, and lemon extract until creamy. Ice the top of your cake and let the icing drip down the sides of your pound cake.  Let icing set before slicing.

I used unsalted butter, because that is the only kind of stick butter I have in the house. I use whipped salted for all other purposes, which is a bit tougher to measure properly. So I used unsalted butter and just tossed in a pinch of salt.

I used two of these snazzy cardboard loaf pans from Sweet Cuppin’ Cakes Bakery & Cupcakery Supplies. My dear friend Lyns who runs the site sent them to me a long time ago, and I’ve been just waiting for the right recipe to use with them. She doesn’t seem to have this kind anymore, but she still has some floral ones. They’re great because you can use them and give them away, and they’re disposable! So no more worrying about getting your loaf pan back, or wrapping a gooey cake in tinfoil or Saran Wrap. I divided the batter into two of these, each filled about a little over halfway. They came out just fine, they rose quite a bit! Gotta love the baking soda/baking powder combo. I didn’t find any difference in cooking time, either. Thanks Lyns! My pound cakes and breads usually never come out aesthetically pleasing, but these came out really gorgeous. I’ll let the loaf pans take the credit for that.

Before glazing…

Before eating!

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If you use these pans, keep in mind one cake recipe will fill two of these pans. They’re smaller than the average loaf pan. To me, this is a good thing- two cakes for the price of one. Speaking of ‘one’… one of the coolest things about these loaf pans is that when it’s ready to eat, just unfold the cardboard at one end, open it up, and cut the slices off. Then you can refold it to put it away, or if it’s done just throw it out. And let me say, this pound cake was actually even better than Starbucks lemon pound cake! Big thanks to the Homegrown Housewife for the recipe.