Lemon Cake

Cake
3 C (15 oz/425 g) all-purpose flour
2 t (8 g) baking powder
½ t (3 g) salt
16 T (226 g) unsalted butter, room temp
2 C (14 oz/397 g) granulated sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 C (237 ml) milk, room temperature
1 T lemon zest (2 to 3 large lemons)

Glaze
1/3 C (78 ml) fresh lemon juice
¾ C (5 ¼ oz/149 g) granulated sugar

Position oven rack in middle position and heat to 350° F (177° F). Thoroughly spray 10-cup Bundt pan with nonstick baking spray with flour. Set aside.

In medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter on medium speed for approximately 2 minutes. Add sugar and beat for an additional 2 to 3 minutes or until mixture is smooth, fluffy and light beige in color. Beat in eggs one at a time, scraping down sides and bottom of bowl as necessary. On low speed alternately add dry ingredients in three additions and milk in two additions, again scraping down sides and bottom of bowl as necessary. Stir in lemon zest. Turn batter into prepared pan leveling top by rotating pan briskly back and forth.

Bake for 55 to 60 minutes or until wooden skewer inserted in center comes out clean. Rotate pan one half turn midway through baking.

Let cake stand in pan for 3 minutes and then cover with wire rack and invert. Remove pan, leaving cake upside down on rack. Place rack with cake over large piece of parchment paper or wax paper and prepare glaze.

Glaze – In small bowl, stir lemon juice and sugar together until sugar is dissolved. Brush glaze over warm cake and let soak in. Glaze must be used immediately after mixing. Let cake cool completely before cutting.

Serves: 10

Used my William-Sonoma (W-S) 10 C Bundt pan. Combined dry ingredients in large glass Pyrex bowl. A medium glass bowl would have been large enough. Although recipe says to sift flour, I measured it through the fine screen strainer. Original recipe did not have a measured quantity for zest. I used the zest from 3 large lemons which measured about 1 T. Used proofer to bring cold items to room temperature. Creamed butter @ 66° F for 2 minutes before adding and creaming with sugar for additional 2 ½ minutes. Mixture was light and fluffy. After adding eggs, dry ingredients, milk, and lemon zest, batter was scoopable but not pourable. Batter filled Bundt pan to 1/2-inch below top edge. I baked cake on cookie sheet to catch over flow. Cake rose ½-inch over pan edge but did not overflow. Because cake top (really bottom) was browning too quickly, I covered it with AL at the 40 minute mark. Wooden skewer came out clean at 60 minutes, well short of the 65 to 70 minute indicated in original recipe. Cake easily and cleanly came out of pan. Applied glaze to warm cake with silicon brush. It took several hours to cool completely. First cut/piece – Cut very cleanly with bread knife. Texture firm but good, maybe a couple of minutes over baked. Next time I would check doneness at 50 or 55 minutes. Glaze did not penatrate as much as I expected. Recommend increasing glaze to 1 ½ times.