Lemon Mascarpone Pound Cake

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This moist, decadent Lemon Mascarpone Pound Cake has a fine crumb and the most wonderful flavor and texture. If you love lemon desserts, don't miss this fantastic scratch recipe. Nobody would guess how easy it is to make!

Lemon Mascarpone Pound Cake, sliced, on a pedestal.

Key Ingredients

Some of the key ingredients in today's pound cake are:

  • Butter (we use unsalted since we have salt in our recipe)
  • Mascarpone, which lends richness and a velvety soft texture to our cake.
  • Sugar
  • Lemon Juice & Lemon Zest
  • Lemon Extract
  • milk (We prefer whole milk or 2%)
  • Cake Flour (Which makes for a softer, more tender crumb)
  • Salt
  • Confectioners Sugar (for the glaze)

How to Make Lemon Mascarpone Pound Cake

You can find the full, printable cake recipe at the bottom of this post. Here is a quick look at our steps!

  • Grease and flour a bundt cake pan or tube pan.
  • Preheat the oven to 325℉
  • Dry Ingredients: In a separate bowl, whisk the cake flour, baking powder, and salt to combine, set aside for later.
  • Using an electric mixer (paddle attachment if using a stand mixer), mix the softened butter and mascarpone cheese on low to medium speed until combined and smooth.
  • Next, gradually add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy for three minutes.
Mixing the mascarpone cheese, butter, and sugar in mixing bowl.
  • Add the eggs to the mixing bowl one at a time, blending after each until the yolk is incorporated.
  • Combine these Wet Ingredients: milk, lemon juice, lemon extract, and zest.
  • With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the milk mixture to the butter/sugar/egg mixture in the mixing bowl. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. We do three additions of dry ingredients, alternating with two additions of wet. Mix just until incorporated.
Lemon Mascarpone Cake Batter in a bowl.
  • Scoop batter into prepared bundt pan or tube pan.
  • Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. The top of the cake should spring back when lightly touched when it is done. *Baking times may vary. Depending on the type of pan, etc., you may need additional baking time.
  • This makes approximately 9.5 cups of batter.
  • Allow the pound cake to cool in the pan on a cooling rack for ten minutes before turning out.
Lemon Mascarpone Pound Cake, cooling in a pan on a cooling rack.

Simple Lemon Glaze

This Lemon Mascarpone Pound Cake is delicious just as it is, but we decided to dress it up a bit with a simple lemon glaze! The glaze, which is based on our easy vanilla glaze, is a combination of powdered sugar, milk, lemon extract, and a pinch of salt.

Consistency: If the glaze is too thick, add a bit more milk, if it is too thin, add a bit more powdered sugar! You can spoon it over the cooled cake, or add it to a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away (or ziplock bag with the corner snipped away).

We topped ours with a sprinkling of lemon zest and topped with lemon slices.

Lemon Mascarpone Pound Cake, sliced, on a pedestal.

Recipe FAQs

Just as with our cream cheese cake recipes, (Cream Cheese Pound Cake, Lemon Velvet Cake, Homemade Strawberry Cake and more), the mascarpone cheese adds richness and makes for a velvety soft crumb.

Mascarpone is often referred to as Italian Cream Cheese, but it does have a higher fat content, making it creamier and richer than regular cream cheese.

Despite this additional richness, the texture of the cake is remarkably light and delicate.

Mascarpone is also a bit sweeter and less tangy than cream cheese. We love them both as a "secret ingredient" in cake batter and they both make for fabulous frostings as well.

We also have a delicious Lemon Mascarpone Cake recipe which is a layer cake. It is so moist and light!

Yes! Just as with the majority of our cakes (from carrot cake to raspberry cake, buttermilk pound cake and more), this cake freezes perfectly!

Whether you are baking in advance, or saving leftover cake for another time, simply wrap the cake tightly in plastic wrap, followed by foil. You can freeze the cake for up to three months!

Pound cakes and bundt cakes are thicker and so they take more time to thaw. When baking in advance, we like to place the cake (still slightly warm) on a foil-wrapped cake cardboard, then cover in plastic wrap followed by aluminum foil. (We use foil so that we can reuse the cardboards).

To defrost, move the wrapped cake to the refrigerator overnight, and then continue to thaw the next morning on the kitchen counter for a few hours or until time to serve.

We like to remove the wrapping after the condensation has formed (after sitting about 40-45 minutes at room temperature).

Individual slices can be wrapped and frozen in the same way!

Nobody will be able to guess that the secret ingredient in your lemon pound cake is mascarpone cheese. It simply takes like an amazing lemon pound cake. The mascarpone adds richness and a really nice texture.

More Pound Cakes

We have many more lemon cakes, and many more pound cakes for you to try! Some of our most popular pound cakes are buttermilk pound cake, sour cream pound cake, and lemon pound cake, but there are so many more!

Thanks so much for stopping by! We hope that you enjoy the recipe. Don't miss our full collection of favorite cake recipes and cake decorating tutorials! We have so many cakes to share with you.

Lemon Mascarpone Pound Cake, sliced, on a pedestal.

Lemon Mascarpone Pound Cake

This decadent Lemon Mascarpone Pound Cake recipe is so moist and velvety soft. Nobody would guess how simple it is to make!
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
Course: Dessert
Servings: 15 servings
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Ingredients

  • 2 sticks unsalted butter softened (equivalent of 226g or 1 cup butter)
  • 8 oz mascarpone cheese, softened We used one container (8 oz.) mascarpone cheese
  • 3 cups (600g) sugar
  • 5 large eggs room temperature (If in a hurry, place eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes)
  • 3 cups (342 g) cake flour (Not self rising. We use Swan's Down, bleached)
  • ½ teaspoon (2g) baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon (3g) salt
  • ¼ cup (60g) milk (we recommend whole milk or 2 percent).
  • 1 tablespoon (12g) Lemon Extract
  • ¼ cup Lemon Juice plus zest (The approximate amount of one lemon.) If you have less than ¼ lemon juice, make up the difference with milk.)

Glaze

  • 1 cup confectioners sugar
  • 1 ½ teaspoons milk Add additional bit by bit until you reach desired consistency.
  • pinch of salt
  • ½ tsp lemon extract Adjust amount to your liking.

Instructions

  • Grease and flour a bundt cake pan or tube pan.
  • Preheat the oven to 325℉
  • In a separate bowl, whisk the cake flour, baking powder, and salt to combine, set aside for later.
  • Using an electric mixer (paddle attachment if using a stand mixer), mix the butter and mascarpone cheese on low to medium speed until combined and smooth.
  • Next, gradually add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy for three minutes.
  • Add the eggs to the mixing bowl one at a time, blending after each until the yolk is incorporated.
  • Combine the ¼ cup of milk, ¼ cup lemon juice, lemon extract, and zest.
  • With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the milk to the butter/sugar/egg mixture in the mixing bowl. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. We do three additions of dry ingredients, alternating with two additions of wet. Mix just until incorporated.
  • Scoop batter into prepared bundt pan.
  • Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. The top of the cake should spring back when lightly touched when it is done. *Baking times may vary. Depending on the type of pan, etc., you may need additional baking time.
  • This makes approximately 9.5 cups of batter.
  • Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out.

Glaze

  • Combine ingredients, adding the milk bit by bit until you reach desired consistency. If the glaze is too thin, add a bit more powdered sugar. If it is too thick, add a bit more milk.

Decorating the Cake

  • You can either spoon the glaze over the cake, or for more control, you can spoon it into a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away (or a ziplock bag with the corner snipped away).

Notes

Bundt Pan: Our bundt pan has a baking capacity of 12 cups and measures about 10 inches. If you are working with a smaller pan, it will take longer to bake. Be careful not to overfill. (General rule of thumb: don't fill pan past ⅔ full)
 
Freezing: This cake can be frozen. If working in advance, we like to tightly wrap our freshly baked cake in a layer of plastic wrap and foil while the cake is still a bit warm and pop in the freezer. The cake can be frozen for up to three months.
 
Thawing: Bundt cakes take longer to thaw than cake layers. It is best to move the frozen, wrapped cake to the refrigerator the night before, and then move to the kitchen counter the next morning (still wrapped) to continue thawing for a few hours. If you'd like, you can remove the foil after a condensation has formed.
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3 Comments

  1. 5 stars
    The lemon cake look delicious, I show my sister the cake, aammm lemon cake. My sister love lemon cake. Thank you for sharing your recipe.

  2. 5 stars
    I made this Lemon Mascarpone Pound Cake today -- one of the very best cakes I've ever made!!! So rich, moist, and flavorful! Thank you so much for sharing this!