Tender and moist, this lemon pound cake has sour cream for a perfect dense crumb and lemon zest and juice for that fresh flavor we all love. Easy to make, it is incredibly versatile (more ideas at the end of the post) yet fantastic with a simple glaze!
Originally published in April 2015, this post has been updated for text and images to serve you better.
As deceptively simple as the title is, considering the years I've been baking and the fact that plain cakes are probably my favorite thing to bake, this is a remarkable recipe which now holds the number one spot for pound cake, citrus or otherwise.
But lemon is a crowd-pleaser, we all know that, right?
And pound cakes are old-fashioned and wonderful and they keep well and the ingredients are everyday staples. So both combined make for a fabulously simple recipe.
Origin of pound cake
Pound cake originated in France and was made with only four ingredients: butter, sugar, flour, and eggs. A pound of each! Can you imagine that? Heavy would be a big understatement I imagine. This was before ingredients like baking powder were discovered.
It is the famous French cake quatre quarts (which means four quarts) due to the number of ingredients and the fact that it was a quarter (or pound) of each.
Ingredients
They are simple ones, but all play a necessary role in this recipe.
- Sour cream: use a regular, full-fat one for best and richer results.
- Flour: I love cake flour for this recipe because the texture is softer, but all-purpose flour can be used and the result will be excellent.
- Lemon: both the zest and the juice are used for extra lemon flavor.
- Vanilla: I like pure extract or paste. It mellows out the lemon flavor while letting it keep it's punch.
- Sugar: just your usual regular, granulated sugar.
- Butter: unsalted is recommended.
- Baking soda: it's used as a leavener that helps the cake to rise.
- Salt: it makes the flavors shine. I like sea salt but regular can be used too.
Sour cream
Sour cream - this is the star ingredient as the title of this post highlights and it makes this recipe a fantastic one.
Why use it in a cake?
Sour cream substitutes some of the butter and/or milk, it adds incredible moisture to the cake and makes for a tight crumb. So the cake is dense (in a good way) and moist. And may have a slight tanginess to offset the amount of sugar or other sweet ingredients. That depends a lot of the recipe.
I personally think sour cream in a cake is one of the best things ever discovered!
Step-by-step
Making a lemon loaf is simple but baking is all in the details.
I put together a step-by-step video to guide you 👇🏻
Glazing
The most common and best way to glaze loaf cakes is with a powdered sugar glaze. It’s super versatile, easy and fast.
It is a must in my opinion, with that extra sweet sensation that makes you want to eat the crunchy glazed top and leave the rest of the cake behind. Maybe not so extremist, since this is an awesome recipe. But you get my point.
I use lemon juice (image below) because well, it's a lemon loaf cake!
But when I say you can use any liquid I mean it! Milk, cream, citrus juice, dark coffee (my personal favorite), liquors, warm water, fresh raspberries, even olive oil, they all work. So take your pick.
Top tips
- Organization: always read the recipe first and make sure you have all the ingredients, at the right temperatures, and also the rest of the equipment and space to make it. This will make the process so much easier!
- Sour cream: full fat is what I always use because it makes for a richer cake, but low fat can be used to with good results.
- Flour: if you have cake flour I like to use it for pound cakes. It lightens up the crumb a little, while still being dense. But keep in mind that all-purpose will work just fine also.
- Creaming: take your time to cream butter, sour cream, and sugar. It makes the cake rise better and makes for a wonderful crumb.
- Baking: pan sizes are important (see variations below) because dense cakes such as this lemon pound cake take a while to bake. So it the pan is too small it will color too much on the outside before being fully baked on the inside.
- Storing it: well wrapped it keeps for 3 days at room t°, a week in the fridge and a month or more in the freezer. I love to freeze leftover pound cake in slices so I can toast them whenever I get a craving.
Variations
Oh boy, there are so many ways you can vary this fantastic recipe! Take the lemon zest and juice out, add more vanilla and you have a base recipe for pound cake.
- Chocolate glaze: make a vanilla pound cake and use one of the amazing chocolate glazes in this blog.
- Pans: you can double the recipe and bake it in a 10-cup bundt or tube cake like the Maple Walnut Cake or a sheet cake like the Chocolate Chip Pound Cake. Also, mini bundt cakes similar to the Blood Orange Cakes can be made.
- Flavorings: add other citruses (I usually make this a lemon-lime loaf) add a tablespoon liquor (replacing some of the lemon juice), use ground spices (cardamom, cinnamon), add ½ cup of chopped nuts or chocolate chips.
The first time I took it to the office it not only disappeared in a nanosecond, but even I was impressed by the texture. And I've baked my share of lemon pound cakes.
I mean, after 30+ years of baking, 300+ cookbooks (and a few other numbers I should be slightly embarrassed to share) I was surprised to find such a fantastic variation of a sour cream pound cake recipe. So go ahead and keep it close. It's worth it.
Frequently asked questions
It probably wasn't beaten well (too little or too much) so not enough air was incorporated and/or the ingredients weren't properly mixed. Also, some recipes are lighter than others while still maintaining the pound cake dense structure, so you might want to try different ones and see which is your favorite.
The first one has more butter than eggs, while the second one should have equal amounts (in weight). Nowadays, pound cakes have gotten lighter and easier to make, and most don't maintain the exact proportions as the very old ones which were a pound of each ingredient (flour, butter, sugar, and eggs).
Yes and no. Originally, this cake relied on beating to incorporate air and rise while baking. Nowadays, recipes try to adapt to a more hectic life and the need for easier baking, so many of them have a little help in the form of chemical leaveners (baking powder, baking soda or a mix of both).
Other recipes you might like:
Let me know in the comments below if you make this recipe! I’d love to hear what you think about it. Thank you for being here, I appreciate it! Let’s connect via Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
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Lemon Sour Cream Pound Cake
- Prep Time: 20
- Cooling time: 60
- Cook Time: 45
- Total Time: 2 hours 5 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
- Category: Cakes
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Tender and moist, this Lemon Pound Cake has sour cream for a perfect dense crumb and lemon zest and juice for that fresh flavor we all love. Easy to make, it is incredibly versatile!
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 1 ½ cups + 2 tablespoons (240g) all-purpose or cake flour
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup + 1 tablespoon (125g) unsalted butter, at room tº
- ½ cup (110g) sour cream, at room tº
- 1 ½ cups (300g) granulated sugar
- 3 eggs, at room t°
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- Zest from 1 lemon
For the glaze:
- ¾ cup powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
Instructions
For the cake:
- Preheat oven 350ºF/180°C.
- Butter or spray one 9x4 loaf pan.
- Spray or butter the pan and line the bottom with parchment if you want. It makes it easier to remove it later.
- In a large bowl beat butter and sour cream until smooth, about 1 minute.
- Add lemon zest and mix.
- Add sugar gradually and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes more.
- Add eggs, one at a time, incorporating each one before adding the next.
- Add vanilla and juice.
- Sift flour with baking soda and salt and add it to the butter mixture at low speed, in 2 additions, beating only until well mixed. Don't overbeat.
- Pour into the pan, smooth top, and bake for about 45 minutes, or until golden and cracked on top and a tester comes out clean. It might take longer depending on your oven and the type of pan you use. If the top is coloring too fast, cover it lightly with a piece of aluminum foil for the last part of the baking.
- Let cool for 10-15 minutes on a wire rack, and then unmold.
- Let cool completely before glazing.
For the glaze:
- Mix powdered sugar and juice until smooth.
- Put the cake on a wire rack and a piece of parchment or aluminum below, and pour slowly along the center of the cake letting it slide to the sides.
- You can rescoop the glaze that drips to the paper and pour it over again.
Notes
Organization: always read the recipe first and make sure you have all the ingredients, at the right temperatures, and also the rest of the equipment and space to make it. This will make the process so much easier!
Sour cream: full fat is what I always use because it makes for a richer cake, but low fat can be used to with good results.
Flour: if you have cake flour I like to use it for pound cakes. It lightens up the crumb a little, while still being dense. But keep in mind that all-purpose will work just fine also.
Creaming: take your time to cream butter, sour cream, and sugar. It makes the cake rise better and makes for a wonderful crumb.
Baking: pan sizes are important (see variations below) because dense cakes such as this lemon pound cake take a while to bake. So if the pan is too small it will color too much on the outside before being fully baked on the inside.
Storing it: well wrapped it keeps for 3 days at room temperature, a week in the fridge and a month or more in the freezer. I love to freeze leftover pound cake in slices so I can toast them whenever I get a craving.
Keywords: lemon pound cake
The absolute best pound cake I’ve ever made! I set the timer for 45 checked it with a long toothpick. Being a novice cook for 47 years, my better judgment told me to leave in the oven the extra 10-12 mins. When the toothpick comes out clean, it’s done!
★★★★★
SO happy to heat that Sally! All ovens are different so we should always follow recipes while trusting our instincts. Have a great week.
I tried the recipe to the letter 3 times each time and it never came out. The edges were done, but the middle was never done. I let the 2nd and 3rd bake a bit longer than the time allotted and still no good result. Will try another recipe.
Hi Candance, sorry to hear that! Do you know if the oven temperature is working? It sounds like an oven issue. I made it lots of times and there are a lot of pictures posted on Pinterest with people that made it and it came out well.
I agree with turning down the heat and baking longer. I had 2 different loaf pans. One dark and one lighter, the darker pan took 55 min and the lighter pan 60 min at 350 degrees. In order to have the center done the edges were overdone even covered with foil. The rise wasn't great either. I think I'll stick to my old recipe where you introduce the sour cream alternating with the flour.
★★★★
I will have to try this recipe with that technique and see how it goes. Have a good week Brigette!
I have made a similar recipe many times, but I lost it, and this version is really close. One thing that I was taught at a catering company was to add the sour cream at the end, I think because of the fat content overwhelming the fat/sugar balance in the creaming process. I wonder if that matters? So you'd cream the sugar/butter, then add half of the sour cream, then half of the flour/dry mix, remaining half of the sour cream and then the last half of flour. I was told to always end with flour.
Is there a reason you cream the sour cream with the butter?
PS: the discussion on flour weight variance above- the problem with using a measuring cup measurement for flour is people scoop their cups differently and get different amounts of air- so if you say you used x grams by weight, that's always a more reliable number than cups, and I appreciate the weight option. So few Americans do it and it's such an unnecessary variable- we need to be more modern and use a scale and be precise. Weight is also a lot faster to measure than scoops.
Hi Matt! Thanks for your comment.
The first time I made this cake I mixed butter and sour cream together and it turned out so well that I continue to do it this way. But I agree about adding it alternating with the flour as a wet ingredients. I do that in many other recipes that ask for sour cream. I'm thinking the cake will turn out fine either way, but I've never really tried both with this particular recipe.
About the flour weight, I know that google shows 125g as the first option sometimes when you search for it, but it also shows a tablespoon being 8 or 9 grams. So that will make a cup be between 128g and 144g. I've weighted it hundreds of times, and usually go back and weight it again when I get that question, to make sure I'm not making a mistake. I use the scoop and swipe method. This is a futile conversation many times with readers. I use the metric system on a daily basis, I don't live in the US, and also post recipes in Spanish, so I always had to make the conversion in order to write them in that language.
Anyway, I put a lot of thought and effort when posting a recipe, and more times than not what bothers is the way people assume the mistake is always with the blogger. It's a part of what I do. Have a great week!
I made this cake. I followed the recipe to the T, it turned out perfectly.
I used 2 stone loaf pans. The cook time was about 1 hour. I bake until internal temp reached 210 degrees. I think because it’s a dense cake you will have to use a temp gauge. It rose very well and has a small crumb. The flavor is perfect.
★★★★★
So happy to hear that Bobby! Dense cakes vary in the baking time depending on the oven, it's sometimes hard to explain in a written recipe. A temp gauge is a good idea. Have a happy New year!
I am sure the 240 grams of flour is not correct I made this cake yesterday using grams not cups the batter was very thick, as I was preparing the ingredients I was thinking that’s a lot of flour but didn’t bother to check the conversion.
Hi Chris! I'm wondering how the cake turned out?
The batter is thick. A cup of flour is 140g, can be 135g sometimes.
I measure and weigh ingredients personally, I don't google it. I don't live in the US and I use the metric system. So I'm pretty familiar with it. Hope this helps.
I am pretty sure that 1C flour is 125g.
I measure and weight it.
Hi Ayako, I do measure and weight it myself also (I use the metric system where I live) and it's always between 135g and 140g.
And 1tablespoon of flour is 8 gram.
I haven't tasted it yet but I wish that the juice measurement was a little more exact than "juice of half a lemon". What size lemon? I used a medium sized lemon and felt that it was the reason that my cake took 56 minutes to attain an internal temp of 210. At 45 minutes, it was still raw inside.
★★★★
Hi Jo, I added 2 tablespoons so it's easier. Let me know how it tasted.
Thanks so much! The first loaf I made tastes great just took longer to bake.
So glad about that! Oven and pans are different around the world even though it might seem not like a big issue sometimes, but they are, and 350° should be exact everywhere, sometimes there are differences in the way the ovens are calibrated or the type of material the pan is made of. So 5-10 minutes differences, in a cake for example, are more common than one might think. Have a great week Jo and thanks for writing back, it helps a lot to troubleshoot!
This Cake is Heaven. I reduce the amount of sugar (only 200g). This cake is the fave of my whole family. Thank you for sharing.
★★★★★
The best! I made it with limes rather than lemons, because that was what I had. Nevertheless, it was delicious! Thank you for posting.
★★★★★
Great to hear that Deb!
I’m not a dessert baker but thought I’d give this recipe a try. The flavor was wonderful but mine also didn’t rise like the picture, took about 10 min longer to bake and was a little dense. Looking at your other pound cake recipes as well as other sources I wonder if the 1/4 tsp of baking soda is a typo. No other recipes use so little.
Hi Barbara, I checked the recipe again and it's fine, and I know many made it and it turned out well as they posted the finished cakes on Pinterest.
But common issues for dense cakes might be over beating, oven temperature not right, smaller pan size so the cake can't rise properly, takes too long to bake, and dries out a bit. Ingredients at room t° are also important so the batter mixes well. Does this help?