Italian Pound Cake

This story is about a struggle that went behind making an Italian pound cake!! 

Right, so I watched an episode from Laura in the kitchen and longed for a pound cake. It sounded absolutely irresistible but to my bad luck I didn't have a few ingredients at home. But that must never come in the way of a drive, should it?? Naah!! So there I was chasing my son to 'natures basket' just nearby. I obviously had to show him the freebies; he wouldn't budge otherwise...ok so I needed vanilla yogurt and some lemon and a few other things for a sandwich bread that I was so motivated to bake afterwards.

Ok hang on.. that's not it..it's not sorted yet...my son comes back with most of the stuff and ONE lemon and 800 gm of yogurt. I obviously didn't need so much yogurt and hey the lemon cost JUST 105 buck!! i'm being extremely sarcastic!! How on earth can a lemon cost 105 bucks?? Not acceptable!! After almost a world war with him he agreed to go back and return the lemon and yogurt and get something else instead. Well being a negotiator he is, he wanted a trade off with some fancy soft drinks..phew!! That's better than a damn tiny LEMON !! I thought and surrendered!!

Then I waited for him to return with normal lemons!! That took almost an hour and by then it was lunch time, so I knew that I was going to be deprived of my afternoon nap as I was convinced and determined to bake the cake today!! My job and Bangalore traffic leaves me with little or no time during the week. So I started the journey at around 3 pm but it was bliss all the way through. It is the easiest to do...preparation time is negligible however baking time takes almost an hour. So?? what the hell that gives me enough time for a cat nap. Try it provided you have a good buzzer on your oven. I for sure need an alarm that almost throws me out of bed!! I finally got there..all's well that ends well!!
Ok before I give you to ingredients and method just some trivia on pound cake - The name of the pound cake "quatre-quarts", means four quarters. A traditional American pound cake would contain one pound each of flour, butter, eggs, and sugar.

Ingredients

1 Cup Vanilla Yogurt 1 Cup of Vegetable Oil 2 Cups Sugar 4 Eggs 3 Cups of Flour Zest of One Lemon ( Indians please buy the local lemon... Nimboo, limboo, tenga whatever you call it..it just fine!! You honestly don't want to eat an Italian pound cake with lemon worth 105 bucks!!) 1/2 tsp of Salt 2 tsp of baking powder and 2 tsp of vanilla extract

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, line a 9X5" loaf pan with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the yogurt, vegetable oil and sugar, add the eggs and lemon zest and blend to combine.

3. Add the flour, salt and baking powder and vanilla extract and mix until it's all incorporated.

4. Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour or until golden brown on top and fully cooked through. If you feel that the cake is browning too fast and the inside is uncooked just cover it with aluminium foil and you will be sorted.

5. Allow to cool completely before serving.

I put the extra dough in cup cake moulds and just got some cakes done as well!!