A Pound cake experience

Pound cakes. What is it about pound cakes that people are obsessed with? I reckon it is its versatility. It is called a pound cake because the basic ingredients are a pound of flour, sugar, butter and eggs. Once you have mastered the basic pound cake, you can start dressing it up with flavoured extracts, different types of icing or chocolates and the list goes on and on.

Thanks to @essjayeff, I think I have the perfect pound cake recipe. It is a huge cake but it means I can share it with more people. The first time I made the pound cake, I thought I failed by using the wrong sugar and chuck the mixture away. You can use white sugar and not castor sugar. But I do advice using castor sugar, it melts easier into the mixture. And make sure that you have a huge mixer! The mixture was going everywhere…. I had fun cleaning up the kitchen after…. NOT! But it is worth the effort and the cleaning after.

pound cake recipe

Ingredients:

• 560g of butter (room temperature)
• 3 cups of flour (400g) Extra flour for dusting the cake tin
• 6 large eggs
• 700g of castor sugar (I suggest toning this down a little. It was a little too sweet for me but everyone seems to love it)
• 1 cup of milk (full cream)
• 1tsp of vanilla essence
• 1tsp of almond essence (I replaced this with zest from 11/2 lemon)
• 1st of orange essence ( I replaced this with orange liqueur)
• 1/2 tsp of fine salt
• 1tsp of baking powder

Method:

• Grease and flour the cake tin well. Turn the cake tin over to remove excess flour. Try and make sure that there are no lumps. Pre-heat over to 160C (fan forced oven)
• Sieve the flour, salt and baking powder twice. Add all the liquid together in a pouring jug. Set all this aside
• Cream all the butter till light and fluffy (about 2 mins). Add the sugar 1/4 at a time. And scrap down sides everytime you add more sugar.(See note 1)
• Add one egg at a time to the mixture, beating 15 seconds before adding another. Remember to scrap the bowl down after each egg. Beat until the mixture is smooth and silky
• Scrape batter into the prepared tin. Tap firmly to allow the mixture to settle evenly. Bake until golden brown. Test with a wooden skewer or toothpick and make sure it comes out clean. Bake for about 1 hr 15mins. Allow the cake to cool in pan for 30min. Invert into cake rack to cool. Remember to allow it to cool completely before slicing

Majestic pound cake

Notes:

• When creaming the sugar and butter, I did not get the silky smooth texture as in the recipe. But it still works. It is not grainy but it just was not silky smooth. And also recipe said 3 mins but it took me longer than that! Maybe it is my mixer and it was not powerful enough?

Sliced pound cake

I made this for a fund raising day at work. I was really worried about it being uncooked or dry or just not good enough. But I received an email from one of my colleagues at work that said “the pound cake was really great, perfect with a cup of tea, thanks !” That is really sweet. He bought 3 pieces. One for himself and the other 2 for his wife and kid.

Mister is a big fan. So thanks to @essjayeff for sending me the recipe and also to everyone on twitter for their advice when I first freaked out when I failed.

Do you have a favourite pound cake recipe to share?