This post is a part of  the mega Blogging Marathon and A-Z challenge. I have chosen ‘popular American dishes’ as my theme.

Pound cake is a classic American cake. But that’s  not my choice for the alphabet ‘P’. Lemon also features big in America. Come summer and the web gets bombarded with so many versions of lemonade. I have read in many comics about kids selling it to make some extra money. I haven’t seen it in person yet, but this is only my second summer here.

So since pound cake is not coming up for this culinary journey, I opted for a compromise.Lemon pound cake : a classic cake in a popular flavor! That is a winner for sure and the best compromise I have made :-)!

Its a pretty straight forward recipe. Read on.

Recipe adapted slightly from:  Once upon a chef

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• a pinch of salt
• 1 cup butter (~225 gms/2 sticks), softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk*
• 1/4 cup lemon juice (4 tablespoons)
• zest from 2 lemons

*Substitute with milk

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease and line two loaf pans.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
3. In a small bowl, mix the buttermilk, lemon juice and lemon zest. Set aside.
4. In a big bowl, beat the butter and sugar with a hand mixer until soft and fluffy, scrapping the bowl in between to incorporate all the sugar into the mix. Beat the eggs in, one at a time till it’s all incorporated well.
5. Add 1/3rd flour, fold it in carefully. Follow this by ½ of buttermilk mixture and gently mix it in. Repeat once again (1/3rd flour & fold; ½ buttermilk & fold) and finally add the remaining 1/3rd flour. Fold it in until no streaks of flour remains. We are adding the flour in 3 batches and buttermilk in two batches. The last batch has to be the flour mix.
6. Divide the batter into the loaf pans and bake for about 50-60 minutes. Check whether its done by poking with a wooden skewer before taking the pans out of the oven. If the skewer comes out free of crumbs, the cake is cooked. Let the cake rest in the pan for at least 5 minutes before removing from the pan. Let it cool completely.
7. For a more intense lemon flavor, you can drizzle with a lemon glaze. You can prepare this by mixing 1/3rd cup lemon juice (about 6 tablespoons) with 1/4th cup powdered sugar. Sourness of the lemon varies widely, so adjust the lemon and sugar quantity based on your preference. Use a fork or a toothpick to make holes all over the top of the cake. Drizzle the lemon glaze and serve.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 63