Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Meghan

Apparently pound cake lends itself to endless variations: here is the third iteration of this recipe, and its also pretty dang good.

I had a request to make Raspberry Lime Pound Cake for a birthday gathering this past weekend, but when I went to the store to get the ingredients they didn’t have raspberries. The produce manager gave me kind of a hard time for even asking for them since it’s mid-winter – of course I bought raspberries there two weeks ago so its not that strange of a request. I decided to use blueberries, and thought lemon would go better with the blueberries than lime would. Of course then I needed to substitute something for the raspberry liqueur so I used vanilla extract. It all worked – I wonder how I will tweak it next time!

Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake
Cake

1 2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 ¼ cup (2 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
5 large eggs

1 Tbs vanilla extract

2 tsp lemon zest (from 3 small lemons – save the lemon juice for the glaze)
2 cups plus 8 Tbs all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
3 cups blueberries

Lemon Syrup

1/3 cup lemon juice (from 3 small lemons)

1/3 cup granulated sugar

Glaze

11/2 cups confectioner’s (powdered) sugar

zest and juice from one small lemon

Prepare a 9-cup bundt pan by greasing and flouring the pan.

Rinse the berries, toss them with two tablespoons of flour and set them aside.

Cream the sugar and butter in a large bowl with a hand mixer on medium speed until they are light and fluffy. Add the eggs, beating after each egg until combined, then add the vanilla extract and lemon zest and beat for another minute or so on medium speed until they are well mixed.

In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and then add the dry ingredients to the egg/sugar/butter mixture in the large bowl and beat briefly just to combine. Then fold in the floured berries to the mix and pour/scrape the batter into the prepared bundt pan.

Put the pan into a cold oven and turn the oven on to 300 degrees F (I used convection) and bake the cake for 70 minutes – test it at that point and if a skewer or toothpick comes out clean the cake is done.

While the cake is baking mix the lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan and heat over low heat until the sugar dissolves completely. Let the cake cool for five minutes in the pan, and then invert it onto a plate or rack and brush the lemon syrup over the cake, letting it absorb into the cake. Then let the cake cool completely before glazing it.

For the glaze, sift the powdered sugar into a bowl, then zest a small lemon into the sugar. Squeeze about half the lemon into the sugar and whisk well, then add more lemon juice if needed to make a glaze.