Learn how to make my mom’s pound cake. This recipe is easy, quick, and straightforward, yet it creates deliciously dense, moist, and buttery pound cake! The addition of lemon zest and lemon juice gives the cake a brightness and a nice hint of citrus! You’ll also learn about the rule my mom has when making the batter that you better not break!
While this recipe isn’t a traditional Dutch dish, you’ll often get this served with coffee in The Netherlands. “Iets lekkers bij de koffie” is something you’ll hear my mom say when she offers you a cup of coffee. It means “Do you want something tasty with the coffee.” If you say yes, you’ll either get her boterkoek or this delicious pound cake! In the summer she will often serve it with fresh berries and whipped cream on it!
Note If you cannot find self-rising cake flour, you can make it yourself. For every cup of self-rising flour that your recipe calls for, measure out one cup of flour and add ¼ teaspoon salt and 1¼ teaspoons baking powder. In grams: 100 grams of self-rising flour can be subbed with 100 grams of flour, plus 5.5 grams baking powder and 1.13 grams salt.
Learn how to make my mom's pound cake. Her recipe is easy, quick, and straightforward, yet it creates deliciously dense, moist, and buttery pound cake! The addition of lemon zest and lemon juice gives the cake a brightness and a nice hint of citrus! You'll also learn about the rule my mom has when making the batter that you better not break!
Mix the salt and flour, and sift the mixture into a bowl.
Zest the 2 lemons
Juice 1 lemon. My lemon yielded approximately 50ml / ¼ Cup of juice.
Melt your butter over low heat. Pay attention to it, you don't want to brown it. I move it off the burner when there's still some unmelted butter in the pan, and then stir it around until everything is melted. Let it cool off a little bit, before using it.
Preheat your oven to 180ºC (350F) in non-convection mode.
Making the batter
NoteMy mom has one very strict rule, never change directions with the mixer when making pound cake. Now, I don't know the science behind it, but I do not dare to break the rule!
Add the melted butter and sugar into the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment.
Mix it until it's thoroughly combined, and all the sugar is dissolved into the butter.
With the mixer running, add the flour to the butter and sugar mixture, one scoop at a time.
From time to time, scrape the edges of the bowl, to make sure everything gets mixed together.
Once the flour is completely incorporated, with the mixer running, add one egg at a time. Wait with adding the next egg, until the first egg is fully mixed in.
Add the lemon juice, and let it mix until fully combined.
Remove the bowl from the mixer, and with a spatula, mix the lemon zest through it.
Melt some extra butter, and grease the inside of your two loafpans.
Add a little bit of flour, and shake it around, until you have a thin layer of flour on the inside of your pan.
Cut two pieces of parchment paper into a square large enough to cover the loaf pan on the short edge. Rub a little bit of butter on one side of each of the pieces of parchment paper.
Divide the batter evenly over your two loaf pans.
Lift the loaf pans, and let them fall back on the table a few times, to get all the air bubbles out of the batter.
Put a piece of parchment paper (butter side down) over the middle of the loaf pan.
Baking the cakes
Place the loaf pans on the center rack of your oven. Make sure there is enough space between them.
After 20 minutes, remove the parchment paper from the pans.
Continue baking until a toothpick, or cake tester comes out clean.
For us, it was between 35 and 40 minutes.
Place the loaf pans on a rack to cool off, before removing them from the pan!
