Lemon Sour Cream Cake @MaddieDay #giveaway

MADDIE DAY here, with a yummy cake and a celebration! 

Ten years ago exactly, I made the decision to leave my day job as full-time software technical writer. It had been my most recent career of several, and it was a good one for me for about twenty years. I worked with words and with smart engineers and other writers. Pay was good, dress was casual, hours were flexible. What's not to like?

Except...I really, really wanted to write more crime fiction. I had one mystery out. The first Local Foods mystery was releasing the following month. I'd written the second and had a contract for a third, and I had several short stories in print. 

But I was fitting it all in around the edges of a demanding job involving WRITING, with an hour commute each way. 

So I conferred with my Hugh (it helped that we'd downsized the previous year and have no mortgage), mustered my nerve, and gave notice.

I never would now be sitting here with nearly thirty published books and more on the way if I hadn't ended my five-year plan three years early. I'm so glad I did, and that deserves cake! 

So I bring you this delicious lemon sour cream cake. Easy to make, and easy on the tongue.

Lemon Sour Cream Cake

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups white sugar

1 cup butter at room temperature

3 eggs

1 cup sour cream (option: substitute whole milk plain yogurt)

1 large lemon, zested and juiced, divided (note: always zest before juicing)

½ cup powdered sugar, sifted

2 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease and flour a fluted tube pan, such as a Bundt pan.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Combine sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. 

Add flour mixture, sour cream, and lemon zest. Beat until smooth.

Pour batter into the prepared pan.

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 55 to 60 minutes. 

Cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Run a table knife around edges to loosen. Invert carefully onto a serving plate or cooling rack. Let cool completely, about 1 hour.

Stir 3 teaspoons lemon juice, powdered sugar, and butter in a small bowl until a thick glaze forms. Poke holes in the top of the cake with a chopstick. Drizzle glaze over cooled cake.

Enjoy with tea, coffee, or sherry – and a good book.

The latest in each of my series, plus my new short story collection.

Readers: What's your favorite flavor of Bundt cake? Have you had a momentous career change? I'll send one commenter your choice of one of my latest books! (Make sure you include your email address.)

📕🎂📚

My most recent release is A Questionable Death and Other Quaker Midwife Mysteries, out in April 2023.

The next book will be Murder at a Cape Bookstore, releasing in August, 2023.

Following that in quick succession will be "Murderous Mittens" in Christmas Mittens Murder and Murder Uncorked, both featuring my new wine bar manager Cece Barton.

Check out all my writing!

We hope you'll visit Maddie and her Agatha Award-winning alter ego Edith Maxwell on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau and sweet cat Martin north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.