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!
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 full-fat one for best and rich results.
- Lemon: both the zest and the juice are used.
- Vanilla: I like pure extract or paste. It mellows out the lemon flavor.
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 sour cream in a pound 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!
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
- 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.
- 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 and it's almost as if 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: make it in a wider loaf pan like the Chocolate Chip Pound Cake. Or double the recipe and bake it in a 10-cup bundt or tube cake like the Maple Walnut Cake.
- Flavorings: add other citruses - I usually make this a lemon-lime loaf -, add a few tablespoons liquor (instead 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.
I mean, after 30+ years 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 so worth it.
Other recipes you might like:
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Lemon Sour Cream Pound Cake
- Prep Time: 20
- Cook Time: 45
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 1 loaf cake 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
Tips & tricks for making this recipe:
- 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.
- 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.
Keywords: lemon pound cake, lemon sour cream cake, sour cream pound cake
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 and 1 tablespoon is 15g, so 1 1/2 cups are 210g + 30g from the 2 tablespoons.
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?