Contents
A pound each of butter, sugar, egg and flour — the oldest written cake formula in English, and one that predates chemical leavening entirely. Everything that lifts it is air beaten into the butter and steam. The French quatre-quarts, four quarters, is the same cake, and the Italian and German versions differ mainly in what flavours the fat.
What makes it work
- All the lift is mechanical. Cream for six to eight minutes, longer than any other cake on this site, and stop only when the mixture is white and looks like frosting. Under-creamed pound cake is a brick, and there is no baking powder to rescue it.
- Everything at 20 °C. Butter, eggs, milk. A cold egg splits the emulsion; a split batter bakes greasy and dense.
- Add the eggs one at a time, beating a full minute between. Four minutes of patience buys the whole texture.
- Low and slow — 160 °C for an hour. A pound cake baked hot domes, cracks violently and stays raw inside. The crack along the top is expected and desirable; a volcano is not.
- The tin must be properly prepared, buttered and floured into every corner of the loaf or bundt.
Ingredients
One 23 × 13 cm loaf, or a small bundt. Serves 10.
- 225 g unsalted butter, softened
- 225 g caster sugar
- 4 eggs, room temperature
- 225 g all-purpose flour
- 4 g fine salt
- 2 tsp vanilla — see Pure vanilla extract
- optional: 60 ml milk or sour cream for a slightly lighter crumb
- optional: 5 g baking powder, the modern concession
Method
Heat the oven to 160 °C / 325 °F. Butter and flour the tin.
Cream the butter and sugar for six to eight minutes at medium-high speed, scraping down twice. It should be nearly white.
Beat in the eggs one at a time, a minute each, then the vanilla.
Sift in the flour and salt and fold — or mix on the lowest speed — until just combined. Fold in the milk if using.
Scrape into the tin, level, and run a buttered knife down the centre lengthwise if you want the crack to open neatly.
Bake 60–70 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes in the tin, then turn out.
Notes
- The flavour variations are all in the fat and the liquid: brown butter, lemon zest and juice, almond extract, a split vanilla pod, or 60 ml of rum brushed on while warm.
- It keeps a week wrapped, and improves for the first two days as the crumb equalises. It is the best keeper of any cake in this folder.
- Slices toast and griddle beautifully in butter — the standard use for day-four pound cake.
Elsewhere on the site
Method and theory: Cake recipes · cakes · baking fats · baker's percentages
Nearby: victoria sponge · lemon drizzle cake · fruitcake