This started out a lavender pound cake, which I think is yummy but about half the world thinks tastes like soap. Since I really don’t want my cakes to taste like soap, I adjusted. I sometimes substitute lemon flavoring for the vanilla, but that may be too much lemon for some of you!

Ingredients
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups vanilla sugar (Recipe to follow)
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
¼ cup milk
Lemon Drizzle (Recipe to follow)


Supplies
Measuring spoons
Measuring cups
2 mixing bowls
Mixer
Bundt pan or 2 loaf pans
Cooling racks (not strictly necessary but they cool faster.)


Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and flour two 8-1/2 x 4-1/2 x 2-5/8 loaf pans (or one bundt pan if you’d like a “fancy” cake.)

  2. Mix flour, baking soda and salt in a medium size bowl.

  3. In a large bowl, beat butter, vanilla sugar, 1-1/2 cups sugar and vanilla until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. In small bowl, combine sour cream and milk. On low speed, alternately beat in flour mixture and sour cream mixture: first ½ flour mixture, then the sour cream mixture, then the remaining flour mixture. Divide between pans, if you’re using loaf pans.

  4. Bake at 350 for 55 minutes or until tester comes out clean. Cool on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan(s) and let cool completely. (I have found that if you use the bundt pan, you have to let it cool quite a bit before it will come out of the pan.)

  5. When it’s completely cool, drizzle with Lemon Drizzle and let sit for at least half an hour. (If you can stand it. I almost never can!)


    6. Vanilla Sugar
    2 cups sugar
    1 vanilla bean

    Put vanilla bean in sugar, cover tightly and let sit for 2 weeks. Every so often (maybe every other day or so) shake the container to mix things up a bit.

    Lemon Drizzle
    ¼ cup lemon juice
    ¾ cup confectioners sugar
    Once the cake is cool, whisk together the lemon juice and the sugar. You might find that you prefer a more lemony cake, so keep adding lemon juice until you get the consistency and taste that you like. Once you have it, drizzle over the cakes.

    If you want a printable version of this, go here