Better Than Starbucks Lemon Pound Cake

Several weeks ago, I had a bit of a baking dry spell and really felt the need to bake. Since my friend Scott just sits over the wall from me, I asked him for a baking assignment. He thought for a moment and then explained how he's really been into Starbucks Lemon loaf and suggested that I try to recreate it.
I steered clear of any copy-cat recipes that were already on the web because I was committed to making a lemon pound cake that didn't use any extracts. I realize that Starbuck's recipe wasn't likely to be as sincere, but I was really curious to see if I could achieve a super lemony cake using only fresh lemons.

In my research, I uncovered two potential winning recipes and after much debate about which one I would use, I decided to wing it and use elements from both. The first recipe was created by Bill Yosses who is the Executive Pastry Chef at the White House. I loved that Mr. Yosses's recipe not only avoided the use of any extracts, but it used almost every part of the lemon. Bill explains that he likes to use small segments of lemon in the batter because as the cake bakes, the juice evaporates and leaves behind little powerful pockets of lemon goodness. I was all for that! The second recipe was one I found on Epicurious that had several good reviews. It was a bit more simple that Bill Yosses's and I loved that it too didn't rely on extracts either. I figured between the two of them and a few little tricks of my own, I'd have a solid contender.
After all was said and done, this cake was almost what I wanted. It scored big points in the flavor department as many testers loved it's bright, yet not over the top, lemon flavor. The only place where I think I missed the mark, was the crumb. While it was a beautiful cake, I felt it just wasn't the dense, super tight-crumbed pound cake I had hoped for. No one noticed this but me, though. As a matter of fact, the one comment I kept hearing from everyone was that this cake was way better than Starbucks! I think I might try this challenge again to get the tight crumb that I wanted, but for now I'm pretty satisfied. :)

Better Than Starbucks Lemon Pound Cake
Yield: Many, many slices! This fed about 24 people, and then some who only wanted a "small slice" Adapted from Bill Yosses and Epicurious 
 
Cake

4 small lemons, organic if you can find them (Note: Avoid the giant lemons! Smaller lemons tend to pack more flavor, contain less water, and are cheaper too!)

3 cups cake flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, that is completely softened*
3 cups superfine, Baker's or caster sugar*
6 eggs, warmed for 10 minutes in hot tap water before using
1 cup full-fat sour cream, all natural (check the ingredients! if there's more than 2, you shouldn't use it!) at room temperature

Glaze
2 lemons
2 cups fresh powdered-sugar*, sifted

Preheat oven to 325F. Grease a 16-cup tube pan and dust with cake flour; tap out any excess. Be sure to grease and flour the center column too. You can also use Pam with Flour (I do).

Scrub the lemons with hot soapy water. Rinse really well and dry completely. Carefully zest four of the lemons, being careful to avoid the pith (the white part that live right below the yellow part of the lemon).  I highly recommend the Microplane Premium zester because you don't have to push down very hard on the lemon to get the zest off easily. Note: Take your time on this step. The zest is the king of lemon flavor and it's where the majority of the lemon flavor comes. Always err on the side of more zest than you need and do your best to avoid the pith as that will add bitterness. It doesn't take many swipes to get to the pith (white stuff) so go slow.

With a very sharp paring knife, cut the tops and bottoms off of each lemon. Put the cut-side down on the cutting board, trim the pith off the lemon, working vertically, going all the way around, exposing the pulp of the lemon. (About.com has a great little tutorial how to do this. They illustrate the technique with an orange but it translates to any citrus fruit).

Over a bowl, cut segments from membranes (see photo above), letting fruit and any juice fall into the bowl, being sure to discard the seeds and the remaining membranes.  With a fork, break segments into 1-inch pieces.  Here's a juicy tip: Try to get as much of the lemon-meat as possible as you're segmenting the lemon. The goal is to collect as much of the lemon segment clusters as you can, it's not about getting lemon juice. Sure, you'll get some lemon juice as it's part of the process of segmenting the lemons but it's not goal. Don't think you've done something wrong if your bowl isn't running over with juice. Actually, if you find that you have more juice than lemon-segments, then something didn't go right. At that point, save the juice for the glaze and start over.

In a separate bowl, combine the sugar and the lemon zest. Work the sugar and zest together between your fingers until the sugar is moist, grainy and very aromatic. (Sooo yummy!) Set aside.
Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.

Beat the butter for 2 minutes at medium speed in the electric mixer. Add half the sugar and mix for 2 more minutes, then add the rest of the sugar and mix again for 4 minutes, stopping once to scrape down the bowl and the beater blade.

Remove the eggs from the warm water and dry them. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating just until combined after each addition (about 30 seconds). On the lowest setting, mix in the dry ingredients, then the sour cream. Lastly, gently fold in the lemon juice and segments. Transfer batter to prepared pan.

Bake cake until tester inserted near center comes out clean, about an hour and a half. Note: Your bake time may vary! Every oven is different! Set your timer for 60 min and check to see how far it has to go. Adjust the bake time accordingly. Keep checking every 5-15 minutes or so until the top is browned and a toothpick put into the center section (between the edge of the pan and the tube center) has no batter on it.

Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes. Cut around the cake in the pan, turn out the cake. Carefully turn cake right side up on rack.

While the cake is cooling, juice the remaining 2 lemons. In a small bowl, slowly add the powdered sugar to the and stir until smooth. It should look thick, opaque, and should be thin enough to it should be pourable. If it's too thin, add more powdered sugar. If it's too thick, add more lemon juice. Poke small holes all over the top of the cake using a fork or toothpick. Carefully pour about 1/2 the glaze over the tops and the sizes of the cake. Let the glaze harden for about 2 hours or overnight. Cover the remaining glaze and keep at room temperature. About a half hour before you're ready to serve, pour the remaining glaze over the cake.

Store in a covered container, either in the fridge or at room temperature.

Ingredient Notes - Read Me!

* Butter - A butter knife dropped on a stick of butter should slide completely through the butter to its center. This means the butter needs to be at 70-72F.

* Superfine/Castor Sugar - You can make this by putting granulated sugar into the food processor and whizzing it around several times for a minute or two.

* Powdered Sugar - If you have an old, half-opened bag of powdered sugar sitting in your pantry, I'd strongly encourage you to throw it away! It's been my experience that powdered sugar that's been opened and not properly resealed starts to oxidize very quickly. It can give the sugar a metallic taste that will impart an "off" flavor into your dessert, especially when combined with lemon juice.