Glazed Lemon Cake

1/2 Pound (2 sticks) sweet butter, softened

2 cups granulated sugar

3 eggs

3 cups unbleached, all purpose flour, sifted

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk

2 tightly packed tablespoons grated lemon zest

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Lemon Icing (recipe follows)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 10 inch tube pan (angel cake pan works)

2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, blending well after each addition.

3. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Stir dry ingredients into egg mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Add lemon zest and juice.

4. Pour batter into prepared tube pan. Set on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 1 hour. or until cake pulls away from sides of pan and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

5. Cool cake in the pan, set on a rack, for 10 minutes. Remove cake from pan and spread on icing at once, while cake is still hot.

Lemon Icing

1 pound confectioners sugar

8 tablespoons (1 stick) sweet butter, softened

3 tightly packed tablespoons grated lemon zest

1/2 cup lemon juice
Cream sugar and butter. Mix in lemon juice and zest. Spread on warm cake.

Notes:

I don't put all of the glaze on at once because the cake is warm and it will just run off and pool all around. I cool it a bit longer than it says...then I put some glaze on...wait 5 or 10 minutes and put some more on and then wait another 5 or 10 minutes before putting the rest on. Also...it calls for quite a bit of zest, you need 5 to 7 lemons. If you use less zest, it is still good.

submitted by Mary Jorgensen