Iron Chef Challenge - Pucker up for Lemon Pound Cake!

Iron Chef Challenge! My first….

I was an Iron-Chef-Challenge-Virgin before yesterday... ….wow that was fun! I messed up the kitchen, did things out of sequence, muttered as a madwoman (to myself …aloud) as I read my new recipe but……..I am very pleased. Both with joining in the competition and the end results!



Clabber Girl Baking Powder is the ingredient of choice………here was my experience.

Epicurious had a dynamite looking lemon loaf photo along with a recipe I thought I might manage. First, let me share the ingredients you’ll need. Then I will share my...ummmm...challenges and the solutions :-)



For the Lemon Loaf

¾ cup cake flour
¾ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoons baking powder (Clabber Girl)
1/8 baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 1/8 cups sugar
4 large eggs – sit them out so they get to room temperature
1/8 cup grated lemon zest (about 2 large lemons)
1/8 cup fresh lemon juice
2 sticks unsalted butter, melted and then cooled
¼ cup sour cream, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Lemon Syrup

¼ cup fresh lemon juice
¼ cup sugar

OK, First off let me say I cut the recipe in half (the above ingredients ARE the half recipe. ) as the original recipe called for two lemon loaves. I only wanted to make the one loaf….but I have to say, after tasting it…I wish I had made two loaves.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease up a 9x5x3 loaf pan. Sift both flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in one bowl.

Put sugar, eggs, lemon zest and lemon juice in a food processor and pulse until combined. With the motor running, drizzle the butter through feed tube. Add sour cream and vanilla, pulsing until mixed. Transfer mixture to a large bowl.

Sprinkle flour mixture, one third at a time, folding gently after each addition until just combined. Do not over mix.

Place the mixture into your loaf pan. Bake in the center of the oven for 20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 325 F and bake for another 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile make the lemon syrup. In small sauce pan heat lemon juice and sugar until sugar dissolves completely. Once dissolved, cook another 3 minutes. Remove from heat.

Place your lemon loaf on parchment paper (I didn’t have any) and poke the tops and sides with a toothpick. Now brush your lemon syrup over the loaf and let it soak up the lemony goodness.



Let it sit about 20 minutes before cutting.



Right. Here’s what happened to me because I didn’t read the recipe thoroughly prior to starting. It DID give me a fantastic end result and anyone who has tasted this loaf agrees it’s moist and delicious. OK……at the beginning while dragging flour out of the pantry, I realized I did not have cake flour. Simple fix – I read a substitution for 1 cup cake flour is 7/8 cup all-purpose flour (so 1 cup minus 2 tablespoons).

Great…that’s covered. I don’t have parchment paper. No problem, I greased up the sides of that loaf pan.

The eggs and sour cream were supposed to be a room temperature. So I turn off the oven and let the eggs and sour cream sit around awhile. I put the pan of hot butter next to them so maybe the warm temperature of the sauce pan would help the other two warm up while butter cooled down.



Again, back to reading the recipe thoroughly……I saw the 350 F temp but must have glazed over turning it down to 325 F for those extra 30 minutes. So it did, in fact, bake at 350 F the entire 50 minutes.

But it didn’t matter! It was good……so good……so moist….so lemony. A dab of whipped cream didn't hurt it either.



I made a few screw ups but in the end – the results were grand ….so I am proud to participate in my first ever Iron Chef Challenge.



Please sir, may I have another?



Here it is...submitted to Iron Chef Challenge




Cheers!