Lemon vanilla pound cake

Pound cake is, in my opinion, at its best a few days after it’s been made. The texture becomes finer, more velvety, and the lemon flavour intensifies. It can be warmed in a frying pan and eaten for breakfast with yogurt and poached fruit, enjoyed with a cup of tea to ward off that mid-afternoon slump, and any leftovers as it begins to get drier can be brushed with a simple syrup and used for a trifle. It also freezes really well.

1 HOUR 45 MINUTES | SERVES 8 10 | EASY

unsalted butter 225g, cubed and softened, plus extra for the tin

lemons 3, zested

soured cream 120ml

plain flour 190g

cornflour 30g

baking powder 1 tsp

golden caster sugar 285g

vanilla bean paste 1 tsp

vanilla extract 1 tsp

eggs 3, plus 2 yolks, at room temperature

ICING

icing sugar 150g, sifted

lemon juice 2 tbsp

vanilla bean paste 1/2 tsp edible flowers or candied peel to serve (optional)

1 Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter and line a 900g loaf tin (I like to use a continental-style tin, with a tapered base for added height).

2 Mix the lemon zest with the soured cream and set aside. Whisk together the plain flour, cornflour, baking powder and a pinch of salt in a bowl and set aside.

3 In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or using electric beaters, cream together the butter, caster sugar and vanilla bean paste and extract on a medium speed. This stage creates the building blocks for the texture and structure of your cake – during creaming, the crystalline structure of the sugar cuts into the soft butter, creating those all-important little pockets of air that work with the liquids and raising agent in your cake to give volume and a light texture. Beat the mixture for 5 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl a few times, until a pale yellow colour and lighter and creamy in texture. Try not to overbeat, though, as it will begin to beat out the air.

4 Use a fork to lightly whisk together the 3 whole eggs and

2 yolks in a jug and, with the stand mixer or beaters still running, pour in the egg mixture a few tablespoons at a time, making sure to wait until it’s fully incorporated before adding any more – if you add the eggs too quickly, the mix will curdle. Scrape down the bowl again a few times during this stage.

5 Once all the eggs are incorporated, you should have a lovely, light mixture. Remove the mixing bowl from the stand mixer and sift over a third of the flour, folding it in gently with a silicone spatula, until you can see no more floury bits. Add half of the zesty soured cream and fold in gently to combine. Repeat this process again, finishing with the final third of the flour – alternating the additions avoids overmixing the batter and minimises the formation of gluten, which would result in a tough cake and an overly dense crumb.

6 Dollop the cake batter into the lined tin, smoothing the top level with a pallet knife or the back of a spoon. Give the tin a gentle tap on a worksurface to settle the batter. Loaf cakes always split across the top so, to guarantee a perfect central crack, run a dinner knife through a little melted butter and score a line down the middle of the cake batter about an inch in from either end. The fat will cause the batter to split down this line as it rises.

7 Bake the cake on the middle shelf of the oven for 55-65 minutes or until a skewer gently inserted into the middle comes out clean. If in doubt, always leave it another few minutes – an under-baked cake will sink and become dense, and this mixture is so moist that a few extra minutes won’t affect it too much. Allow the cake to cool in its tin for 10-15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

8 Once the cake is cool, you can either enjoy straight away or wrap until the following day. It’s delicious and will keep better un-iced but, to make the icing, mix together the sifted icing sugar, lemon juice and vanilla bean paste in a small bowl until smooth. Pour into the centre of the cake and, using a palette knife or the back of a spoon, smooth over the top, encouraging some drips to fall down the sides. Leave plain or decorate with candied peel, edible flowers or dried flowers – rose especially brings out the floral notes in lemon.

PER SERVING 10 489 kcals | fat 24G saturates 14.1G | carbs 62G | sugars 44.5G fibre 1G | protein 5.4G | salt 0.2G

Holly Cochrane is a freelance food stylist and self-taught pastry chef. She runs Taymount Bakery, a community micro bakery in south-east London, which specialises in handmade viennoiserie. @hollyshootsandchefs