Ann Bevins’ Lemon Buttermilk Pound Cake

After sam­pling the vio­let-topped tea cakes Ann Bevins brought to a recent Pick of the Pots mem­bers-only pre-sale, many peo­ple asked about the recipe. Ann was kind enough to share it with us — and hon­est enough to tell us she got the cake recipe online at www​.once​uponachef​.com. She found the rasp­ber­ry fill­ing she used to make it extra-spe­cial for her son’s wed­ding at www​.geniuskitchen​.com.

Ingre­di­ents:
For the cake: 

• 3 cups all pur­pose flour, spooned into mea­sur­ing cup and lev­eled-off with a knife, plus more for the pan
• ¹⁄₂ tea­spoon bak­ing soda
• ¹⁄₂ tea­spoon salt
• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalt­ed but­ter, softened
• 2−1÷4 cups gran­u­lat­ed sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup but­ter­milk (low fat is fine)
• 2 table­spoons grat­ed lemon zest, packed (note: you’ll need 4 – 5 large lemons for the entire recipe)
• 2 table­spoons fresh lemon juice

For the Syrup:

• ¹⁄₃ cup water
• ¹⁄₃ cup gran­u­lat­ed sugar
• 2 table­spoons fresh lemon juice

For the Glaze:

• 1 cup con­fec­tion­ers’ sugar
• 2 table­spoons fresh lemon juice
• ¹⁄₂ tea­spoon lemon zest, packed
• 1 tea­spoon unsalt­ed but­ter, melted

Instruc­tions:
Pre­heat the oven to 325°F and set an oven rack in the mid­dle posi­tion. Spray a 10-inch bundt pan with non-stick cook­ing spray and dust with flour.
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In a medi­um bowl, whisk togeth­er the flour, bak­ing soda and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an elec­tric mix­er fit­ted with the pad­dle attach­ment (or beat­ers), cream the but­ter and sug­ar on medi­um speed until light and fluffy, 3 – 4 min­utes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then beat in the eggs one at a time, beat­ing well after each addi­tion. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again.

In anoth­er bowl, com­bine the but­ter­milk, lemon zest and lemon juice.
With the mix­er on low speed, beat in one-quar­ter of the flour mix­ture, then one-third of the but­ter­milk mix­ture. Beat in anoth­er quar­ter of the flour, then anoth­er third of the milk mix­ture. Repeat with anoth­er quar­ter of the flour and the remain­ing milk mix­ture. Final­ly, beat in the remain­ing flour mix­ture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and give a quick mix to make sure all of the ingre­di­ents are well incor­po­rat­ed.

Spoon the thick bat­ter into the pre­pared bundt pan and smooth with a rub­ber spat­u­la. Bake for 1 hour and 5 min­utes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Cool the cake in the pan for ten min­utes on a rack.

Mean­while, make the syrup. Com­bine the water and sug­ar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice.

Invert the warm cake onto a rack. Slip a large piece of parch­ment paper or alu­minum foil under the rack to catch all the drips from the syrup and glaze. Grad­u­al­ly brush the hot syrup over the cake, let­ting it soak in (a lit­tle syrup will drip off, but try not to rush so that most of it is absorbed). Allow the cake to cool com­plete­ly, about one hour.

When the cake is cool, slip two large met­al spat­u­las under the cake and care­ful­ly trans­fer to a serv­ing plat­ter. To make the glaze: com­bine the con­fec­tion­ers’ sug­ar, lemon juice, lemon zest and melt­ed but­ter in a medi­um bowl, mix­ing with a fork until smooth. Add more con­fec­tion­ers’ sug­ar or lemon juice as nec­es­sary to make a thick but pourable glaze (it should be the con­sis­ten­cy of thick hon­ey). Spoon the glaze over the top of the cake, let­ting it drip down the sides.

For the rasp­ber­ry filling:

Ingre­di­ents:

• 1 1⁄2 cups frozen raspberries
• 1 table­spoon cornstarch
• 2 table­spoons lemon juice (fresh is best, but…)
• 1⁄4 cup sugar

Instruc­tions:

In a small sauce pan, com­bined all ingre­di­ents and slow­ly bring to a boil over medi­um-high heat (keep stir­ring until thick­ened for best results).

Let cool com­plete­ly before spread­ing onto cake.