Lemon Pound Cake

I needed a quick and easy dessert for an informal dinner party two weeks ago and came across a recipe from - you guessed it - Anna Olson! Her Lovely Lemon Pound Cake recipe is easy to make and requires minimal ingredients. Garnish with some fresh blueberries and a lemon glaze and you're set with a dessert that looks like it was a lot more work than it really was.

Lovely Lemon Pound Cake

From AnnaOlson.ca

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp finely grated lemon zest
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp fine salt
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 3/4 cup icing sugar, sifted
• blueberries

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 275F and grease and flour a loaf or bundt pan.
2. Using an electric mixer, beat butter, sugar and zest until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Sift dry ingredients together and add to butter mixture in two additions, mixing on low speed. Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes. Increase oven temperature to 325F and bake for another 40-50 minutes (check regularly to ensure cake isn't overdone) until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cool for 30 minutes in the pan, then turn the cake out to cool completely.
3. Fill center of cake with blueberries and garnish the plate with any additional blueberries. For the glaze, whisk together the lemon juice and icing sugar until smooth. Pour or drizzle over the cake and blueberries. Let the glaze set.

**Note: this cake also freezes well - you can freeze it for up to 3 months if it is wrapped properly.

This cake was really flavourful and easy to prepare. What better combination than lemon and blueberry right?! Pretty much any type of berry would work with this cake, so feel free to be creative. You could even omit the glaze and just dust with icing sugar. I hope you enjoy this recipe and get the chance to try it out! What kind of desserts do you like to use for informal dinner parties?

Happy Baking my Friends!