Lemon pound cake ( reduced fat )

A killer shopping spree at Mustafa caused me to end up with $200 worth of spices and a huge bag of lemons. It is not everyday that I visit Mustafa ( which is my happiest place in Singapore )  and therefore all the more I have to maximize the trip by buying whatever is cheap and good. Which is almost everything.

I am not into lemons and so the yellow and fat beauties lay dormant in the veg compartment after that impulse buy. But after lusting at a couple of blogs showing seductive, velvety lemon pound cakes, I happily succumbed to the baking urge.

Here, the recipe is tweaked. 3 main ingredients were toned down – butter, sugar and salt to cater to my many dietary restrictions. I am happy to say that it tastes good, and coming from a person who does not care much for lemon, it means much.

Inspired by Tracy

Ingredients :

200g cake flour
½  teaspoon baking powder
1/16  t fine salt
100ml  sour cream
1 1/2 T  lemon juice
Zest of one lemon
180g fine sugar  
130g unsalted butter,  room temperature
5  medium eggs,   room temperature

Method :

Preheat oven to 160C.

Prepare a lined baking tin, 9 by 5 inches. Grease and dust the sides of the tin with flour.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt. Set aside.

Combine sour cream and lime juice. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, rub sugar and zest with your palm to release the lemon oil.

At low speed, cream butter with lemon sugar until pale yellow, about 5 minutes.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

Make flour mixture into 3 portions, sour cream mixture into 2 portions.

Whisk / fold in flour followed by sour cream.

( I.E. whisk in this order : flour , sour cream, flour , sour cream, flour )

Place the cake on a baking rack in the preheated oven. Bake at 160C for 60 minutes.

Cool completely.

To add glaze, sift 1 cup of icing sugar into a bowl. Add 1 T of lemon juice.

Stir and drizzle over the cooled cake.

Wait for the glaze to dry before serving.