Can I add lemon juice to batter to make it lemon flavored?

[Aisha]

Hello guys. I am new on this site. I am also an extreme beginner at baking. I was planning on making an emergency pound cake in couple hours. I have been looking for a perfect lemon pound cake recipe on internet because I cannot follow the first recipe i bump into. Firstly, I am clumsy so I try to look for a basic, easy recipe that you cannot go wrong with. Secondly, I always have a hard time finding ingredients for recipe that aren't from my country. I loved this recipe (image attached) because its from a baker from my country and it looks quite simple to me. However, it is not a lemon pound cake. I was wondering if it is safe to add 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice to the batter to make it lemon flavored. I am not a frequent baker and I don't need anything fancy or strong lemony with glaze and icing etc. I just need a little twist in the traditional pound cake. I would appreciate if anyone could respond to me with whatever advice or suggestion they have ASAP. Thankyou in advance.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Hello guys. I am new on this site. I am also an extreme beginner at baking. I was planning on making an emergency pound cake in couple hours. I have been looking for a perfect lemon pound cake recipe on internet because I cannot follow the first recipe i bump into. Firstly, I am clumsy so I try to look for a basic, easy recipe that you cannot go wrong with. Secondly, I always have a hard time finding ingredients for recipe that aren't from my country. I loved this recipe (image attached) because its from a baker from my country and it looks quite simple to me. However, it is not a lemon pound cake. I was wondering if it is safe to add 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice to the batter to make it lemon flavored. I am not a frequent baker and I don't need anything fancy or strong lemony with glaze and icing etc. I just need a little twist in the traditional pound cake. I would appreciate if anyone could respond to me with whatever advice or suggestion they have ASAP. Thankyou in advance.

This recipe does not contain milk, so yes you can add lemon juice. If you add lemon juice to recipes that contain milk it can cause the batter to curdle.

If you have a mesh strainer, I'd suggest you sift the flour to lighten up the texture a bit.

That said, lemon juice is not the way to flavor a cake. The flavor is actually in the oil which is in the zest, not in the juice. You won't be able to taste much lemon flavor if you add juice.

Zest 2 small to medium lemosn, then rub the lemon zest into the sugar with your fingers. Then let the sugar sit for about 15 minutes.

If you want a bakery quality cake, drizzle with lemon simple syrup after cake is removed from the oven.

Simple syrup for cakes is always 1:1 ratio of liquid to sugar. Liquid can be all juice or a mix of juice and water.

Mix 1/2 cup liquid and 1/2 cup sugar. Stirring, heat to boil, reduce heat and stir until sugar is dissolved. Cool. Drizzle lemon simple syrup on warm cake. You can actually use all lemon juice if you want. I usually use 3 parts juice to 1 part water.

Pound cake is best made the day before serving. Drizzled with simply syrup while warm, then rested until the next day.

 

[Aisha]

Thanks alot. learned a lot in just couple minutes. Will definitely use lemon zest

 

[ChesterV]

I guess I'm lucky...........I've always used milk in my recipes and never had a problem with adding citrus to it and having it curdle.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

I guess I'm lucky...........I've always used milk in my recipes and never had a problem with adding citrus to it and having it curdle.

Yes, it's in the timing and mixing…but I never tell anyone that because if the timing is wrong and they don't also fully incorporate the dry ingredients in three additions, they will end up with a batter that looks like cottage cheese. For those of us that have baked as much as you and I we instinctively learn when and where we can add things like citrus without curdling the batter.

But zest in sugar still gives the most flavor and fragrance

 

[ChesterV]

Yes, it's in the timing and mixing…but I never tell anyone that because if the timing is wrong and they don't also fully incorporate the dry ingredients in three additions, they will end up with a batter that looks like cottage cheese. For those of us that have baked as much as you and I we instinctively learn when and where we can add things like citrus without curdling the batter.

But zest in sugar still gives the most flavor and fragrance

It's really weird for me though........I've ALWAYS known how to bake, create recipes, and what goes with what.
I've never known anything else.

I never took cake decorating classes, I just did it. I mix what I mix, and it turns out. I use things people would never use, and it turns out. I've even sat down and just written out recipes for various things in less than 10 minutes, and they turn out.

I've had my failures too, but only because I was testing something new, a different setting, or trying to figure out the workable amount of something.

I would have preferred the gift of making billions of dollars, but this is ok too I guess.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

It's really weird for me though........I've ALWAYS known how to bake, create recipes, and what goes with what.
I've never known anything else.

I never took cake decorating classes, I just did it. I mix what I mix, and it turns out. I use things people would never use, and it turns out. I've even sat down and just written out recipes for various things in less than 10 minutes, and they turn out.

I've had my failures too, but only because I was testing something new, a different setting, or trying to figure out the workable amount of something.

I would have preferred the gift of making billions of dollars, but this is ok too I guess.

Yeah, there's no money to be had in baking. It's about the joy of creating something really good to eat--which is no easy feat because baking really is complicated.

 

[ChesterV]

Yeah, there's no money to be had in baking. It's about the joy of creating something really good to eat--which is no easy feat because baking really is complicated.

I did have the opportunity to get a small startup bakery that was already established for VERY, VERY cheap.......
Went and looked at it and everything, and was in a location that was an "up and coming" $$high end$$ area.
Talked to a woman I worked with about this and she called her husband who was an investment banker, and he told me he would have no problem getting me the small amount for the bakery.

So I called the woman back, and she had already sold it to some dance studio!!!! I told her I wanted that bakery and she said "oh, I thought you were joking".

Some new curse words were invented that day, JUST for HER!!!!

WHY would I have wasted all of my time like that if I were NOT interested, and then on top of all of that, TELL her I WANTED that bakery???

I don't see how some people aren't shoved into rubber rooms, away from everybody else at an early age.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

I did have the opportunity to get a small startup bakery that was already established for VERY, VERY cheap.......
Went and looked at it and everything, and was in a location that was an "up and coming" $$high end$$ area.
Talked to a woman I worked with about this and she called her husband who was an investment banker, and he told me he would have no problem getting me the small amount for the bakery.

So I called the woman back, and she had already sold it to some dance studio!!!! I told her I wanted that bakery and she said "oh, I thought you were joking".

Some new curse words were invented that day, JUST for HER!!!!

WHY would I have wasted all of my time like that if I were NOT interested, and then on top of all of that, TELL her I WANTED that bakery???

I don't see how some people aren't shoved into rubber rooms, away from everybody else at an early age.

Oh what a sad story!

 

[ninamari]

I did have the opportunity to get a small startup bakery that was already established for VERY, VERY cheap.......
Went and looked at it and everything, and was in a location that was an "up and coming" $$high end$$ area.
Talked to a woman I worked with about this and she called her husband who was an investment banker, and he told me he would have no problem getting me the small amount for the bakery.

So I called the woman back, and she had already sold it to some dance studio!!!! I told her I wanted that bakery and she said "oh, I thought you were joking".

Some new curse words were invented that day, JUST for HER!!!!

WHY would I have wasted all of my time like that if I were NOT interested, and then on top of all of that, TELL her I WANTED that bakery???

I don't see how some people aren't shoved into rubber rooms, away from everybody else at an early age.

Oh ChesterV, that's awful! There are some people who are just unbelievable

 

[ChesterV]

Thanks for the sympathy, but I didn't mean to post it as a sob story......I was just posting to show how people are.

Anyway.............thats when I gave up baking and went into office work.

 

[Apocalypso]

I've been trying to find a recipe for an orange cake that would be bursting with orange flavor. So far, I've tried one I found online (it was just meh), then took an idea I saw (in a Masterclass episode, where Mary Berry made a 'whole orange' cake by basically poaching a whole orange, skin and all, then cutting, removing the seeds, and pureeing in a blender. I did this, and half a lemon besides, adding to a basic scratch yellow cake recipe, except I reduced the buttermilk by about 2/3. I thought afterwards that I maybe should have adjusted the leavener due to the increased acidity, but they rose okay. Still not enough orange 'pop' so today I made orange curd for the first time. It didn't quite set up firmly enough to use as cake filling so I had to add some gelatin and re-heat it. Looking good now. I'm not sure whether the curd will soak too much into the crumb of the cake; I'm toying with adding a very light buttercream in between. The top and sides will be dark chocolate ganache. I'm just hoping it looks decent when I put it together, and my boyfriend likes it. Everything's chilling for the night. (It's kind of a dry run for a party coming up.)

So you could look for "whole lemon cake" recipes by Googling, depending on how lemony you want it to be. Of course, lemon flavor pulls through a lot better than orange, gram for gram.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

I've been trying to find a recipe for an orange cake that would be bursting with orange flavor. So far, I've tried one I found online (it was just meh), then took an idea I saw (in a Masterclass episode, where Mary Berry made a 'whole orange' cake by basically poaching a whole orange, skin and all, then cutting, removing the seeds, and pureeing in a blender. I did this, and half a lemon besides, adding to a basic scratch yellow cake recipe, except I reduced the buttermilk by about 2/3. I thought afterwards that I maybe should have adjusted the leavener due to the increased acidity, but they rose okay. Still not enough orange 'pop' so today I made orange curd for the first time. It didn't quite set up firmly enough to use as cake filling so I had to add some gelatin and re-heat it. Looking good now. I'm not sure whether the curd will soak too much into the crumb of the cake; I'm toying with adding a very light buttercream in between. The top and sides will be dark chocolate ganache. I'm just hoping it looks decent when I put it together, and my boyfriend likes it. Everything's chilling for the night. (It's kind of a dry run for a party coming up.)

So you could look for "whole lemon cake" recipes by Googling, depending on how lemony you want it to be. Of course, lemon flavor pulls through a lot better than orange, gram for gram.

You could use orange marmalade or a neutral preserve like apricot as a glaze to keep the curd from soaking into the cake. Just warm the preserve to melt, then apply with a pastry brush. Let it set up before spreading the curd.

I found the variety of orange makes a difference in the flavor intensity. When I started work on my gluten free chiffon cake recipe earlier this year, cara cara oranges were still in season. I baked five test cakes over a two week period. The first two test cakes were cara cara; the third was Valencia, followed by two naval orange cakes. The cara cara cakes were bright, fresh, and very flavorful. I could really taste the orange flavor. The naval and Valencia were good, but not as flavorful. They were definitely more subtle compared to the cara cara.

I rubbed the zest from two medium oranges into the sugar with my fingers to release the oils. I let the sugar zest rest for a good twenty minutes before using. I found the cara cara zest had a lot more oil in the zest; the sugar definitely looked more moist after the rest.

I made orange simple syrup using a 1:1 liquid to sugar. The liquid was 3 parts fresh orange juice, 1 part water. The cara cara juice really stood out. The pulp of the cara cara is quite deep, almost like a ruby grapefruit. So it made my cake a lot more orange as well.

A friend of my son's was just diagnosed with celiac's disease, so I'm converting a few recipes from metric weight to volume measurement for her. Each recipe has to be tested to ensure the conversion is adequate. So I'll be testing the orange cake in the next few days. Since cara cara is out of season, I purchased a bottle of orange blossom water to add to the orange simple syrup. I'm hoping the orange blossom water will enhance the flavor of navel orange simple syrup. I've never used orange blossom water so we'll see...

 

[ninamari]

I've been trying to find a recipe for an orange cake that would be bursting with orange flavor. So far, I've tried one I found online (it was just meh), then took an idea I saw (in a Masterclass episode, where Mary Berry made a 'whole orange' cake by basically poaching a whole orange, skin and all, then cutting, removing the seeds, and pureeing in a blender. I did this, and half a lemon besides, adding to a basic scratch yellow cake recipe, except I reduced the buttermilk by about 2/3. I thought afterwards that I maybe should have adjusted the leavener due to the increased acidity, but they rose okay. Still not enough orange 'pop' so today I made orange curd for the first time. It didn't quite set up firmly enough to use as cake filling so I had to add some gelatin and re-heat it. Looking good now. I'm not sure whether the curd will soak too much into the crumb of the cake; I'm toying with adding a very light buttercream in between. The top and sides will be dark chocolate ganache. I'm just hoping it looks decent when I put it together, and my boyfriend likes it. Everything's chilling for the night. (It's kind of a dry run for a party coming up.)

So you could look for "whole lemon cake" recipes by Googling, depending on how lemony you want it to be. Of course, lemon flavor pulls through a lot better than orange, gram for gram.

How did your trial cake turn out?

 

[Apocalypso]

For myself, I loved the flavors and so did my boyfriend. The ganache was a bit too thick and it was more like an enrobed cake. I would make it a bit thinner next time by tweaking the chocolate to cream ratio, or using a slightly lighter chocolate than ScharffenBerger?

I never did get the cake to be intense orange, but the curd really popped the orange flavor. So I might even use a yellow cake next time instead of orange-on-orange.

It was fun to experiment! I hadn't done much baking over the past several years, so it's been fun to play while I'm not working for a bit. The past two days I've been making potstickers with different fillings. I have a freezer bag full.

 

[Nights]

Thank you so much for the helpful hint of rubbing the zest into the sugar.

Kirsty

 

[LMHmedchem]

For a while now I have used LorAnn brand citrus oils to add citrus flavor to baked goods. I particularly like it in marzipan. I typically use zest as well but then add some lemon, orange, or lime oil to boost up the flavor. There are more exotic flavors as well. These are not expensive as you use very little at a time. They are made by extracting the oil from the peel, so it is the same thing as zest, just concentrated. There are also some cases where you may not want the pith from the zest (like custard or buttercream) and oils work very well there as well. They lack the acid that is in the juice and so spare you the problem of curdling.

Citrus flavored liqueur like Limoncello, Grand Marnier, or Cointreau can also be a good option. Most extracts (like vanilla extract) are made by steeping a natural flavor in alcohol, so you can get some of the same thing with a cordial.

LMHmedchem

 

[Pinkaholic]

You can definitely add lemon juice as well as lemon zest- I use loads of both as I like a really lemony cake! Have even added it to a batter as well as milk with no probs, just make sure that the milk is well mixed in before you add the lemon juice. Imho, I find real lemon flavouring to be much better than lemon oil - oil is just too subtle and always tastes a bit artificial to me. Also not a fan of lemon drizzle as the syrup is just too sugary and I want the tartness the lemon to come through. Always grate the lemon before you squeeze it btw, easier to do when it's firm!