Pound cake is called pound cake because it requires a pound of each ingredient. A pound of flour, a pound of butter, pound of sugar, pound of eggs. Which makes this one of the most literal desserts, and possibly the heaviest dessert. At first I was very intimidated. I wondered if all the ingredients would even fit in the mixer or the pan. Surprisingly it did and with room to spare. Don’t get me wrong it was very very heavy. But the cake is so dense that everything seems to fit quite nicely.
One of the tricks to making a pound cake light is to really whip the butter before adding any other ingredients. This will create the base of the cake. Each ingredient after that has to be added very gradually as to not deflate the whipped batter. The more whipped the batter is the more silky the inside of the cake will be.
Be sure not to overbake the cake. You can tell when its done by sticking a skewer through the cake. When it comes out a little wet but with significant crumbs on it then take it out of the oven and let rest. The cake is so dense it will continue to bake outside the oven. After 45 mins, be sure to test the cake again with a skewer to ensure that it comes out clean and is fully baked.
Classic Pound cake
Ingredients
- 4 sticks softened Butter room temperature
- 3 cups Sugar
- 6 Eggs
- 3 ¾ cup flour
- 1 TBSP Vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp salt
Instructions
- Grease and Flour a Bundt Pan
- Preheat Oven to 350 degrees
- Using a large standing mixer, beat the butter until creamy and fluffy.
- Gradually add in the sugar and whip until light and airy
- In a separate bowl mix together the eggs, vanilla and salt.
- Very slowly and gradually pour in the egg mixture into the butter/sugar in the standing mixer. You want to create a thin, slow, steady stream so as not to deflate the fluffy batter in the mixture.
- Beat until fully incorporated, then gradually add in the flour.
- Once the batter is fully mixed in, pour the batter into the pre-greased bundt pan
- Bake for 1 hour 15 mins or until you can pull a crumby toothpick from the center slightly underbaked.
