Candied Orange and Yuzu Pound Cakes

Candied Orange and Yuzu Pound Cakes
 
Recipe adapted from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle via Lisa Campbell

Notes: There are two kinds of pound cake that I really love: the walnut kind at Chinese bakeries, and any lemon pound cake. The latter is usually flavoured with lemon zest or oil in the batter, and covered with a lemon glaze or syrup after baking.

Dried Yuzu PeelYuzu PeelI started this project out by soaking a package of candied yuzu peel (purchased on our Asia trip) in a mix of lemon and tangerine juice. My thinking was that I could soften and flavour the strips of zest, and have the delicately scented yuzu come through in the cake. For the second loaf, I slivered some spiced, candied orange peel from a previous project.

Candied Orange and Yuzu Pound CakesThis pound cake recipe is rich: not only does it use the standard equal parts of flour, eggs, butter and sugar, it also calls for heavy cream. I wimped out and used table cream instead since we had it in the fridge. There's also a bit of insurance in the form of baking powder to ensure the cake isn't too dense. However, this turned out to be not the case. My cake had a few wet spots in the interior, and was a bit dense. I don't think I beat the batter long enough to fully aerate the butter, sugar and eggs. Anyhow, my tasters at work found it delicious, and I've been enjoying small pieces for dessert, reheated from the freezer. The yuzu flavour is not that strong though. But where can I get the zest of a fresh yuzu or even yuzu oil!?

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