Why It Works
- Creaming room temperature butter with sugar aerates the cake batter and helps it rise within the oven.
- Utilizing bleached cake flour, which has a decrease protein content material than all-purpose flour, limits the gluten developed within the batter, which helps produce a fantastic, tender crumb.
- A small quantity of baking powder, not conventional for many pound cake recipes, ensures the dense batter rises evenly.
A thick slab of a well-made basic pound cake is a factor of magnificence by itself, but in addition an exquisite canvas for a dusting of powdered sugar, dollops of whipped cream, or the season’s finest fruit. With a crumb as clean as marble, it is dense to the purpose of creamy, and silky because it melts in your tongue. The entire thing is enclosed in a golden crust that peaks so excessive it splits down the center because it bakes.
Rising up, I ate pound cake usually. My mother, although busy along with her profession and elevating three youngsters, was an avid residence cook dinner and baker, and would in some way nonetheless discover time to bake a pound cake—utilizing a recipe from her personal mom, who was additionally a working mum or dad—nearly each Friday evening via the winter, when my brother, sister, and I craved the lingering odor of recent cake coming from a heat oven.
Our household’s pound truffles would sit on a slicing board, loosely wrapped in tinfoil, and stay there via the weekend, able to be sliced and portioned as we happy for dessert, or served with afternoon espresso for household guests who would possibly pop by. By Monday morning only some crumbs would stay. It’s the best straightforward dessert for a busy mum or dad (or actually any busy particular person) to whip up—it is created from substances most individuals have already got of their fridge or pantry and it is extremely easy to combine collectively, dump right into a loaf pan, and bake.
Severe Eats / Amanda Suarez
My grandma’s recipe, and plenty of older recipes for pound cake, name for equal weights—a pound every—of sugar, butter, eggs, and flour, therefore the identify. Most conventional recipes embrace no added leavening, and their rise depends on the air naturally trapped within the batter via correct creaming and mixing. And since basic pound cake recipes have no added liquid (no milk or cream, for instance), the batter seems particularly thick, wanting to dome up within the oven, creating its signature craggily cut up prime.
Although my mother made it look so easy, baking an ideal pound cake as described above can include its challenges. Baking the thick, dense batter in a tall, deep loaf pan in order that the inside bakes on the identical price the outside browns requires a foolproof approach so that you simply aren’t left with a crumbly dry cake or burnt crust.
With a number of strategic tweaks to my household’s recipe, the pound cake I am sharing the recipe for right here has the qualities I really like (golden crust, fantastic crumb, large crown) and avoids the problems that contribute to pound cake’s largest downside—an inclination towards dryness. Learn on to study the important thing methods I take advantage of to make an ideal pound cake and to get the complete recipe.
Key Strategies for Making a Memorable Pound Cake
Begin with room temperature substances. It is a commonplace rule for many cake recipes, together with pound cake. Beginning with softened, room temperature substances permits for a smoother, extra evenly blended batter by enabling substances like butter and eggs to include air extra simply, leading to a lighter, fluffier texture in your remaining baked good. In the event you begin with chilly butter, or incorporate chilly eggs into the batter, the chilly substances gained’t mix totally, which can result in a clumpy batter, ruining the emulsion and aeration you wish to obtain when creaming the butter and sugar and whipping the eggs.
Cream the butter and sugar collectively totally. As former Severe Eat’s senior editor Stella Parks factors out in her article on why to cream butter and sugar, adequately creaming the butter and sugar traps air bubbles within the batter; because the cake bakes within the oven, these bubbles increase, serving to the cake rise. With out these air bubbles, butter and sugar type a dense paste that provides truffles the feel of a moist brick. Butter is finest crushed at cool room temperature—ideally 65ºF or 18ºC—when it is tender however not overly so. At this temperature, butter is pliable sufficient to beat with the sugar, which aerates the batter.
Severe Eats / Amanda Suarez
Add a contact of baking powder to leaven the batter. As famous above, most conventional pound cake recipes don’t name for added chemical leaveners. The truffles get their rise simply from the air that is trapped within the batter if you cream the butter. However I’ve discovered that even with correct creaming, pound cake can generally not get the best carry, leading to a squat cake that has a squished, spongy texture in the direction of the underside.
To keep away from the danger of this, I take advantage of a small quantity of baking powder to ensure the right rise so the cake has a good texture from prime to backside. By its nature, baking powder will not launch the majority of its carbon dioxide till warmed above 140°F (60°C), which takes a quite very long time in a super-dense pound cake. On this recipe, meaning the baking powder offers a late-stage launch of carbon dioxide that’ll assist give the cake its remaining carry to create the specified cut up prime.
Add a small quantity of milk. Just like baking powder, including liquid past eggs to pound cake just isn’t conventional. Pound cake has a good, clean crumb construction, and to attain this you want a thick batter that gained’t fluff or transfer an excessive amount of because it bakes. Any added liquid would skinny the batter, making a lighter extra aerated texture, too much like a layer cake, which you don’t need right here. However, I’ve discovered that including only a small quantity of milk to the batter provides richness and enhances the cake’s velvety texture. It provides only a trace of moisture to ensure the cake melts in your mouth with out compromising its signature dense texture.
Don’t overmix the batter. Whereas pound cake has a tighter crumb compared to different truffles similar to layer or sponge truffles, it ought to by no means be powerful. The best and most foolproof approach to keep away from a tricky cake is to not overmix the batter. Add the flour in three additions, and wait till every addition is simply included earlier than including extra. As quickly because the flour is simply included, cease the mixer. In the event you preserve mixing as soon as all of the flour is included, you’ll over-develop the gluten protein within the dough, which can create a chewier, extra bread-like texture—one thing you wish to keep away from.
Use the best dimension pan. In contrast to layer truffles—which have a skinny batter that may rise dramatically because the cake bakes, so you need to by no means fill the pan greater than midway with batter—pound cake batter is thick and can stretch and rise much less dramatically. This implies you need to fill the pan inside an inch of the highest to make sure the completed cake has a distinguished crown. Utilizing a 9- by 5-inch or an 8 1/2- by 4 1/2-inch loaf pan will guarantee this. Utilizing an even bigger pan will result in flat-topped loaves.
Grease and flour the pan. When baking any kind of cake, it’s at all times essential to grease the pan nicely with both softened butter or cooking spray earlier than including the batter. This ensures the cake, as soon as baked, will simply launch from the pan with out tearing. However when baking pound cake in a loaf pan, it is advisable go one step additional and likewise frivolously flour the pan after greasing. The sunshine dusting of flour offers a textured floor for the dense batter to climb up because it bakes. Flouring the loaf pan is crucial to assist the cake rise as tall as doable.
As soon as the cake is baked, be sure that to let it cool earlier than slicing it. Reducing right into a piping scorching cake could also be tempting, however this will create a dense, gummy texture. When the cake is prepared, serve it up nonetheless you want—by itself together with a cup of espresso or tea, with ice cream, or as a automobile for recent berries. My favourite approach to take pleasure in it’s to slather a thick slice with butter, toast it till the butter seeps in and the sides are golden and toasted, then lower it into chunk dimension cubes to eat whereas nonetheless heat.
The 1-Ingredient Improve for Traditional Pound Cake That Melts in Your Mouth
Cook dinner Mode
(Maintain display awake)
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198g bleached cake flour (7 ounces; 1 1/2 cups), plus additional for flouring pan
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1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
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4 giant eggs, room temperature
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10g (2 teaspoons) vanilla extract
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227g (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened plus additional for greasing pan
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1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt; for desk salt use half as a lot by quantity
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248g sugar (8 3/4 ounces; 1 1/4 cups)
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60g (1/4 cup) entire milk, room temperature
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Alter oven rack to center place and warmth oven to 325°F (160°C). Generously butter a 9- by 5-inch (or 8 1/2- by 4 1/2-inch) loaf pan; mud pan liberally with flour and knock out extra flour.
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In a medium bowl, whisk flour and baking powder to mix; put aside. In a 2-cup liquid measuring cup or medium bowl, whisk eggs and vanilla till mixed; put aside.
Severe Eats / Amanda Suarez
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Within the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and salt on medium-high velocity till shiny, clean, and creamy, 2 to three minutes, scraping down bowl as wanted. Cut back velocity to medium and progressively pour in sugar (this could take about 60 seconds). As soon as all sugar is added, improve velocity to medium-high and beat till combination is fluffy and nearly white in shade, 5 to eight minutes, scraping down bowl as wanted.
Severe Eats / Amanda Suarez
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Cut back velocity to medium and progressively add egg combination in sluggish, regular stream (this could take 60 to 90 seconds). Scrape down bowl. Enhance velocity to medium-high and beat combination till mild and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes (combination might look barely damaged).
Severe Eats / Amanda Suarez
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Cease mixer and scrape down bowl. On low velocity, add 1/3 of the flour combination, beat till simply mixed, then add milk and beat till mixed. Add one other 1/3 of the flour combination, beat till simply mixed, then repeat with remaining flour. Scrape backside of bowl to make sure that batter is homogenous.
Severe Eats / Amanda Suarez
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Switch batter to ready loaf pan and clean floor with rubber spatula. Bake till golden brown and wood skewer inserted in middle of cake comes out clear, 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes (see notes). Let cake cool in pan on wire rack for quarter-hour. Invert cake onto wire rack, then flip cake proper facet up. Let cake sit on wire rack till principally cool, a minimum of 1 hour. Slice and serve.
Severe Eats / Amanda Suarez
Particular Gear
Stand mixer with paddle attachment, 9- by 5-inch or 8 1/2- by 4 1/2 -inch loaf pan
Notes
If the highest of the pound cake begins to show too darkish earlier than the middle of the pound cake is totally cooked, loosely cowl the highest with a bit of aluminum foil and let end baking till middle of the cake is totally baked.
Make-Forward and Storage
Leftover cake may be saved in an hermetic container at room temperature for as much as 5 days.
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