A cake loaded with citrus and eggs.
I am wild about this cake, a buttery, eggy, not-too-sweet pound cake loaded with citrus flavor. This scrumptious cake has a fine crumb and tender texture and is great served in thin slices with tea or coffee. It stays fresh for 4 to 5 days, covered, at room temperature. Or you can bake and freeze it, uniced, for up to 2 months.
What does Montana have to do with tropical?
Montana is known as the Treasure State, and western Montana, where we live and where the climate is strongly influenced by Pacific coastal weather systems, tends to have milder winters compared to the rest of the state. Because of this, a very popular bumper sticker appeared several years ago, proclaiming “Native of Tropical Montana.” Whenever I traveled by car to points south, people always commented on that message. Montana is, of course, far from tropical. But I make this cake to honor the sentiment on the bumper sticker and to use up egg yolks left over from angel food cake.
What is the difference between traditional "pound cake" and other cakes?
A couple of years ago I wrote an article for Gastronomica called Please Don’t Call It Pound Cake because many bakers were using the term “pound cake” for practically any kind of cake in a tube pan that contained unspeakable amounts of chemical leavening. The classic, original, and traditional pound cake–made with approximately equal amounts of butter, sugar, flour, and eggs–contains no chemical leavening. This citrus cake is a pound cake in spirit even though it has 1 teaspoon of baking soda because I use the soda to neutralize the acidity in the sour cream. The soda’s leavening action is a side effect of that function.