Fresh Lemon Pound Cake

Thoroughly wash the lemons and let them dry. I set my lemons on my dish drying mat.

Limp lemons do not zest well because the peel is already drying up and getting rubbery. So choose the freshest lemons for zesting. The older lemons are okay for juicing, but not for zesting. The zest is what gives this recipe its greatest zing, so don't skimp on the zest.

For this recipe, I normally use three large lemons to get 1/8 cup of zest and 1/2 cup of juice. I use half of that juice in the cake and a few tablespoons in a lemon glaze.

How to Zest a Lemon

Using a grater, swipe the lemon across the fine grade holes with a firm, pressing motion. Once the white pith is exposed, do not grate that area again. You may be able to get two swipes, but generally a single swipe is all you can safely grate in order to prevent getting the bitter pith into your zest. 

Zesting a lemon is a bit of work. You need to swipe the lemon's peel across the grater, and rotate the lemon to expose a new, fresh bit of peel. Then continue, rotating and moving the lemon until you have grated off the majority of the bright yellow peel.

When I zest a lemon, I do a pattern of swipe, peek, rotate, swipe.

When the lemon is zested, some of the peel will remain, but it will look pretty naked. Then you can halve the lemons and juice them. I often fish out the seeds by hand and add the lemon pulp for even more lemon umph in my recipe.

Since I've written this article, I have added a wonderful gadget to my kitchen. This Cuisipro grater is wonderful. Forget that archaic grater you see in the images above. Forget little hand held zesters. This Cuisipro grater feels great in the hand, zests/grates super smooth and fast!

In about five swipes, I had a full tablespoon of lemon zest. And my lemon was not very fresh at all; in fact, it was very rubbery and normally would have been difficult to zest. But this Cuisipro grater handled it without a problem.