Blackberry Lemon Pound Cake

A few days ago we hit our secret blackberry spot again and picked a couple more pails of blackberries which have been in the fridge since then. I needed to use up at least some of them today and I wanted to try something different than I did last week with cobbler. I googled berry pound cake recipes and one of the recipes I came upon was from the local blog Orangette (Molly Wizenberg). I made a few changes because I wanted to use up the blackberries and also add a lemon/citrus note with zest in the batter and a lemon glaze. Also the original recipe called for a food processor, but I prepared it using a hand mixer with good results.

Blackberry Lemon Pound Cake (adapted from orangette.blogspot.com and originally from Bon Appétit, July 1986)

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

1 1/2 Tbs Disaronno liqueur

Zest from one large lemon (save the lemon juice for the glaze)
2 cups plus 8 Tbs all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
3 cups blackberries

Glaze: Juice from one large lemon and confectioner’s sugar (enough to make a thick glaze).

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

Rinse the berries (especially if they’re hand-picked), 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 liqueur and lemon zest and beat for another minute or so on medium heat until they are well mixed.

In a small bowl, stir 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. Let the cake cool for five minutes in the pan, and then invert it onto a plate or rack and let it cool completely before glazing it.

For the glaze, put the juice of a large lemon into a bowl and slowly whisk in confectioners sugar until you have a thick glaze (I used about 3/8th cup lemon juice and 1 1/4 cups confectioners sugar but the glaze could have been a bit thicker).

I received two compliments on this cake tonight: one; I left the house to go to dinner with a friend with the cake in the oven and my daughter met me at the door when I came home hours later anxious to try a piece. When she got her slice and I asked her how it was she barely stopped eating to say  yummmm, its good mamma, and two; my husband ate two pieces one after the other. Success!