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You all know that I love baking and I’m preparing for a full on baking day tomorrow as I’m preparing to make white chocolate bark and cookies to give as gifts and to bring to both of the Christmas celebrations we will be celebrating with my family and my in laws.  (I’m also thinking about making chex mix and muddy buddy mix if I have enough time!)  Before I start all that, I thought I’d share my recipe for a Lemon Pound Cake that I made about a month ago that is to die for and would be a good treat to have on Christmas morning!  While I typically do not believe in substituting “healthy” stuff for stuff that’s supposed to be indulgent (like you will never convince me that “cauliflower mashed potatoes” is as good as the real thing.  I believe in indulging in what you love, just control how much of it you eat),  my one exception is butter.  I don’t like butter.  Yes, I love to bake but I don’t like butter.  I don’t like the taste of it so I always am trying to cut down on how much butter I use when I bake.  I understand that most of the time that you can’t taste the butter and that it just adds to the texture of the baked good, however, in my mind, I still dislike butter so I just try to use as little of it as possible.  I’ve found that yogurt does a great job in replacing butter which is what I did with this Lemon Pound cake and it tastes amazing.  My husband (who does love butter) can never tell when I substitute yogurt for butter and he enjoys this lemon pound cake so much that I had to make another loaf just to freeze and eat it for later.  I cut the butter in half for this recipe as well as used non-fat milk (that’s not an on purpose substitute, that’s the only kind of milk I drink.) but feel free to use low fat or whatever kind of milk you like.  The pound cake still had a wonderful heft to it like pound cake normally does but it also had a light and buttery texture, even without all of the “regular” ingredients.  I also made a lemon glaze and oh man it was yummy!

While I wouldn’t count this as healthy or anything, if you are trying to reduce the amount of butter in your diet or you are like me and don’t like butter, this is a great recipe to try, especially when you are in the mood for something lemon-y!

Lemon Pound Cake (light!)
Adapted from: allrecipes.com 
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup plain yogurt (you can use Greek yogurt too)
1 egg
~1 cup non-fat milk (when mixed with egg)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 lemon, zested

Glaze
2 cups of sifted powdered sugar and
1/3 cup lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9×5 loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. In another bowl (or in your stand mixer), cream together butter, yogurt, and sugar. Break 1 egg into a measuring cup and then fill to the 1 cup line with milk. Add to butter/sugar mixture and beat well. Add vanilla, lemon juice and zest. Add dry mixture and mix well.
4. Pour batter into the loaf pan. Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of cake comes out clean.

For the glaze: mix together powdered sugar and lemon juice until desired consistency. Let cake cool completely before pouring glaze over cake.

 

 

Like my baking posts?  Check out my fave Chocolate Chip Cookies and my mother in law’s recipe for the best sugar cookies ever!  In fact, I think I will be baking those tonight!