Lemon Poppy Seed Pound Cake Recipe

Hey, I'm John Kanell. And today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making a delicious and luscious lemon poppy seed pound cake. So let's get started. First off, preheat your oven to 350, so it's nice and hot. This recipe is very fast. We're gonna zest our lemons. We want maximum lemon flavor in this pound cake. And to do that, you need lemon juice, but also the oils from the zest. Two lemons will give you about a tablespoon of zest, which is just right. And for this, I'm using a microplane. It's one of my favorite tools in the kitchen. It takes off just the zest of lemons, limes, and oranges, and none of the piss, which is bitter. Set that aside for just a minute, and now we're gonna heat up the milk. Half a cup of whole milk. Pop this into the microwave, 20 to 40 seconds, until it is nice and warm, but not scalding hot. To my warm milk, I'm going to add my lemon zest. The oils will come out and dissolve into that warm milk. If you want a little twist, and I love this personally, but it's not for everybody, you could add just a smidge of culinary lavender. This is like a food-grade lavender that's been dried out. Think of it as like lavender tea. You can steep it in any warm liquid, and it'll infuse a lavender taste into your baked good. I'm adding half a teaspoon of this dried lavender in. That is more than enough. It's quite powerful. So good, okay. Give that a little stir, and you're gonna set this aside for about five minutes to infuse. While that infuses, I'm gonna juice my lemons. I want a third of a cup of freshly-squeezed lemon juice. One third of a cup of lemon juice coming right up. I love lemons. I think it's my mom's influence because everything had lemon juice for seasoning and flavor. They brighten basically any dessert that you add them to, even like blueberries. Blueberries and lemon are a match made in heaven. In addition, it's an acid, so when you add just the right amount of lemon to a baked good, it inhibits the gluten from forming bonds and gives you a more tender cake. All right, one third of a cup, perfect. A very special thank you to Quince for sponsoring today's video. Everyone probably knows that I love making delicious things in the kitchen, but tablescapes are also a passion of mine, and using products from Quince really helps with that. Quince is a one-stop shop for high-quality home goods, clothing, and accessories. I love these cake plates from East Fork. They look great, and they're perfect for everyday use. I especially love this 100% European linen tablecloth. It has such a lovely range of colors and complements my serving wear and my desserts beautifully. By working with top-tier manufacturers and cutting out the middleman, Quince is able to give you high-quality goods without the markup. In general, when you look on their website and do some perusing, I think you'll agree that Quince has a really nice balance between being elevated, but everyday. And when you place your order, you have free shipping and 365-day returns, which is great. That looks delicious, and even more so on this beautiful plate. Thanks to Quince for sponsoring today's video, and now, let's get back to the recipe. Into a medium bowl, I'm adding two cups, or 240 grams, of all-purpose flour. If you just scooped the flour with a measuring cup, by the way, it's packing this powder in. You could use 80% more flour than you need, which gives you a sad, bready, dry cake, which is not my favorite. The scale will give you the perfect results. If you don't have a scale, just fluff the flour up and then sprinkle it into your measuring cup and level it off. That way, you have the correct amount. I also want 1 3 1⁄4 cups of granulated sugar. That's 350 grams. By the way, if you like my recipes, hit that subscribe button. There's two new videos every single week. Perfect. To puff things up, 1 1⁄2 teaspoons of baking powder. For some contrast, 1⁄4 teaspoon of salt, and one tablespoon of poppy seeds. These guys will give you a subtle, little bit of a nutty, little bit of a sweet flavor, and they also have that texture, which I personally enjoy. Grab a whisk. And my book, if you'd like. That book is all baking and has all my favorite desserts. All right, we're gonna give this a whisk until it's nice and combined. And I meant to say this earlier, but if you like having less sugar in a recipe, that's fine. You could reduce the sugar slightly. Yes, it'll be less sweet, but your cake will also be a bit firmer because the sugar really softens the crumb. So it tastes cakey as opposed to like sandwich bread. All right, that's lovely. I can set that aside now. Into a large bowl, we're gonna add the melted butter now. That's three quarters of a cup, or 170 grams melted unsalted butter. If you only have salted butter on hand, that's fine. Just don't add the extra salt. I'm adding a half a cup of sour cream. It's 120 grams. And the sour cream just gives you a lovely little bit of tanginess to the cake, which really pairs well with the lemon and the sugar. I'm also adding in my third of a cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice. And for some structure, three whole eggs. No shells. You should crack this into a separate bowl so you can assure yourself that there are no shells coming in. And we can also add in our infused milk with the zest and the lavender if you wanna do that. No pressure. I tested this recipe both ways and they're both delicious. Give this a nice whisk so it's perfectly combined. Beautiful. Now combine the wet and the dry together. It doesn't matter if it's wet into dry or dry into wet. And you're gonna gently stir this together until it's just combined. You don't wanna overmix this because it'll come out of the oven looking perfect, but because you activated the proteins in the flour, it'll yank itself back as it cools and you'll have like a dense and gummy cake. It won't be as delicious. The flour just disappeared, so now we can pour this into our prepared pan. This is an eight and a half by four and a half inch loaf pan, lightly greased with some parchment paper as a cradle. You could fully line it or just do this. If you only have a standard loaf pan, which is slightly larger, totally fine. It will slightly affect the bake time, probably be a bit lower and those be a shallower cake. Either give this a little shimmy just to level it out or you can use a spatula to smooth it out completely. Doesn't really matter. Either way, this is ready to go into the oven. 350 degrees for 60 to 80 minutes. You want the center to be cooked through, but 50 minutes, five zero, into the bake time, loosely tent with foil so it doesn't take on too much color. And your test is of course, a toothpick inserted into the center will come out clean. Probably it'll be closer to an hour and 20, but start checking it at 60. In you go. My beautiful lemon poppy seed lavender cake has baked and cooled. Let's make a luscious lemon icing. One cup or 120 grams of powdered sugar. And I'm gonna start with one tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice. I want my glaze to be on the thicker side, so you have to be a little bit patient as this is gonna look kinda like nonsense at the beginning until it's all mixed in. Once it's all mixed in, I can add in a little bit of lemon juice at a time. I'm just gonna drizzle it in. Right now I have one and a half tablespoons. This smells so zingy, I love it. So this is smooth, but that is very thick. So just like a quarter teaspoon of lemon juice extra. And now I have a nicer icing. That's good. So I added in a tablespoon and three quarters or a tablespoon and two thirds. And now I have a nice drippy glaze. Once your glaze is ready, just drizzle it all over the top as much or as little coverage as you'd like. This looks lovely as is, but wouldn't it be nice if we had a tiny bit of lemon zest just all over the top? This is to be done right before serving as the lemon zest doesn't really keep it dehydrates. Just like that. Give it a slice and just like that, your beautiful lemon poppy seed pound cake is ready to enjoy. Might I interest you in a bite of cake? One for you, one for you. You wanna take a bite? Approved? Okay, well, I'm glad you enjoyed it. It tastes like victory. Okay. So zingy, full of lemon flavor, and the cake itself is marvelously dense. It's not a fluffy cake, it's a pound cake, but still, it's super delicate and just melts in your mouth. I hope you get a chance to make this delicious recipe and if you like my videos, hit that subscribe button and check out my lemon playlist.