In 2020, I am one of the lucky few who got to celebrate their birthday under quarantine (#♈️). With a (hopefully) once in a lifetime opportunity like this, I decided that I would do something I had never done before: bake a cake. Admittedly, I chose a somewhat unthreatening cake to make—I imagine pound cakes as a permanent accompaniment to my grandmother’s chai—but nonetheless it was extremely gratifying to make.

Since grocery shopping provides more challenges now than it has in the past, here are some lessons I learned while making this cake that hopefully can be useful to you as well:

Pound cake traditionally requires either a substantial amount of eggs or less eggs with some milk. As I didn’t want to use too many eggs at this time and milk has become a bit difficult to come by I came across a few recipes that called for either yogurt or sour cream, and since my local grocery store only had strawberry flavored yogurt, I went with the sour cream which there was an abundance of. This ended up turning out really well and any concern about the sour cream having a distinctive taste in the final product was gone after the first bite.
Now more than ever, I fully advocate for shopping at Asian grocery stores. Asian owned businesses have been particularly hit by the current pandemic and so I’ve been trying my best to do most of my grocery shopping there. A perk of this is being able to find most of my grocery list essentials with relative ease, including a five pound bag of flour and 3 pound bag of sugar. Perusing through the aisles I still see dried rose petals and lavender buds in the tea section. All this to say: if you’re having difficulty finding ingredients, your local Asian grocery stores will probably have most of them.
The glaze for this recipe requires powdered sugar which I didn’t have. I ended up just blending it in my blender which turned out surprisingly well. A coffee grinder should work for this purpose, too.
Not a quarantine specific tip, but when making this recipe I’d recommend taking out your eggs about 10 minutes before you start making it. When I added them to my room temperature butter I could see my butter start to cluster up and stiffen as if I had put it back in the fridge. If you have a stand mixer this probably won’t be as necessary though.

Pound Cake with Rosewater-Lavender Glaze

Pound Cake Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsps salt
2 sticks of room temp unsalted butter (226 g)
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tbsp vanilla extract

Rosewater Lavender Glaze Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tbsp rosewater
1 1/2 tbsp milk
lavender buds for garnish

Directions:

For the pound cake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
In a large bowl whisk room temperature butter until they appear to be soft and fluffy. Add one egg at a time and whisk until fully combined. Then add the sour cream and vanilla and whisk. Add sugar and whisk again.
Using a strainer or sifter, sift through the flour. Then add flour, salt, and baking powder and mix with the egg mixture from Step 2 until incorporated, making sure no pockets of flour or sugar remain.
Butter a loaf pan (I used the remaining parchment paper from the two sticks of butter to do this) and lightly flour the pan on all sides.
Pour batter into pan and spread evenly using a spatula if necessary.
Transfer to a 350 degree oven and bake for approximately 40-45 minutes. You’ll know it’s ready when the thickest part of the cake can be pierced with a toothpick and comes out clean.
Allow the cake to cool for about 15 minutes before taking out of pan.

For the Rosewater-Lavender Glaze:

If using granulated sugar, pulse in either a coffee grinder or blender to make powdered sugar. Otherwise, if you already have powdered sugar go to Step 2.
Mix powdered sugar with rosewater and milk until it achieves a thick consistency that can still be easily poured and drizzled. If too thick, add more rosewater or milk as necessary.
Drizzle the glaze over finished pound cake after its done cooling. Sprinkle with lavender buds.