Erin Mann is baking a new cake every week for a year from the "All Cakes Considered" cookbook and shares her adventures her on Ann Arbor.com. Read past columns here.

The first stop on my cake-filled journey is Sour Cream Pound Cake with a lemon glaze. This cake is my first assignment in Baking 101. Course objectives include greasing, measuring, creaming, beating and - the most important - no peeking!

As the name suggests, the recipe calls for sour cream. I very much dislike sour cream, but sour cream in a cake? Eh, I'll try anything once. The night before my cake baking debut I go to Trader Joe's to pick up some last minute ingredients. I'm standing in front of the dairy case eyeing the sour cream, trying to decide between organic or non-organic and I hear a snicker. 

My boyfriend is laughing at me! The woman who refuses to eat a nacho if even a speck of sour cream has touched it is buying a tub of it to make a pound cake. He wanted to take a picture to capture the moment I came face-to-face with my dairy nemesi but I wasn't having it.

Time to bake the first cake. I get out all of the ingredients and set them on my kitchen table. I prepare my pan using parchment paper and baking spray. The oven is pre-heated and the butter is softened and ready for creaming.

This is where it all begins. Every Monday for the next year I'll be in my tiny kitchen baking a cake. No turning back. Carpe Diem. Deep breaths. Ok, go.

After 20 minutes of careful measuring and methodical mixing, I have a large bowl filled with a thick yellow batter that's ready for my newly purchased 10-inch tube pan. I place the pan in the oven and set the timer for 90 minutes. No peeking. 90 minutes? No peeking?! This better be worth it.

I try to busy myself and fight the temptation to open the oven door and check on the cake. That becomes increasingly difficult as appetizing aromas waft through my apartment. After 1 hour and 10 agonizing minutes of cake smells, I decide to check the cake.

I grab my box of tooth picks and spill about half of them on the floor. "246 toothpicks." I think of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man as I pick them up. I press a toothpick into the center the cake and it comes out clean. I pull the cake out of the oven and allow it to cool for about 15 minutes before removing it from the pan and revealing a golden brown crust. Then more cooling.

In the mean time, I prepare the a simple glaze of confectioner's sugar, milk and lemon extract. I use a spoon to gently drizzle the glaze over the cake. Some of the glaze pools in the bumpy, crackly craters on top of the cake while some rolls over the edges and down the sides. I step back to admire the cake. Not too shabby. My work here is done. Now, who wants cake?

Erin Mann is a new contributor to AnnArbor.com. She is baking a new cake every week for a year from the "All Cakes Considered" cookbook. E-mail her at SheGotTheBeat@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter.