My mother makes wonderful pound cakes and so last week I decided to try my hand at a series of pound cakes while my wings are clipped due to the virus. I currently only have her Chocolate Pound Cake recipe so I’m trying to get all of them from my parents. Trying to get 80 somethings to learn how to use the scan function on their printer is more than a little difficult. Anyway, I pulled down some recipes off the web and got started last week.
First out of the gate was a Sour Cream Pound Cake. It had good reviews so I figured why not. It folded beaten egg whites into the batter which was a royal pain and nothing I had ever seen my mother do when making a cake. Also the cook time was an hour and it took an 1 hour 40 minutes to be done. The flavor was good, but I won’t make it again and didn’t post it here due to the difficulty of the recipe.
Next up is a Crunchy Pound Cake, we’ll see how it goes. I’ll make it in the next few days.
Following the Crunchy Pound Cake I’ll make the Chocolate Pound Cake. Not sure what I’ll make after that, but I have many old cookbooks with recipes so I should not run out even if my father cannot figure out how to copy her index cards.
My father at best has a burner phone. I’m staying away until C-19 is not a threat to them so currently we are distance learning on how to use their scanner.
Here’s the Sour Cream Pound Cake recipe. I’d skip it. Too much work with the egg whites and the baking time is way off. Tastes good, but nothing to write home about.
Currently baking Crunch Top Pound Cake. Easy by comparison to the Sour Cream. I’ll know later in the week if this is a keeper or not.
Crunchy Top Pound Cake 6 eggs 1 cup butter (2 sticks) 3 cups sugar 3 cups all purpose flour 1 cup whipping cream (also known as Heavy Cream) 1 teaspoon vanilla Instructions Grease and flour tube (or bundt) pan and set out eggs and butter to allow them to come to room temperature. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for one minute after each addition. Sift the flour and add it to the creamed mixture alternately with the whipping cream. Mix until fully incorporated. Stir in the vanilla. Pour into prepared pan and place in a cold oven. Turn the oven to 300 and bake for 80-90 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely before removing from pan.
My wife has decided the Crunchy Top Pound Cake recipe is a keeper. The cooking time was way off. Starting from a cold oven it took 115 minutes until the cake tester came out clean baking at 300F.
Was going to try the same cake in a preheated oven, but ran into a recipe from Trisha Yearwood which was the exact same ingredients. The instructions were slightly different and the temp was 325F starting with a cold oven. It was called Cold Oven Pound Cake.
Cold Oven Pound Cake Ingredients 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature 3 cups sugar 6 large eggs, at room temperature 3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted 1 cup heavy whipping cream 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Directions 1 - Do not preheat the oven. Grease and flour the bottom, sides and tube of a 9-inch tube cake pan. 2 - Cream the butter and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition, but do not overbeat. Set the mixer on slow speed and stir in the flour and cream alternately, beginning and ending with the flour. Add the vanilla and stir well. 3 - Pour the batter into the prepared pan and put the cake in a cold oven. Set the oven temperature to 325 degrees F. Begin timing now and bake the cake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Test of doneness by inserting a toothpick in the center of the cake. The toothpick should be clean when it is removed. Cool in the pan for 30 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to continue cooling.
For us it took 90 minutes of total cooking at 325F. The pan was too hot for me at 30 minutes, but I followed the recipe as written and removed from the pan. Trisha must have asbestos hands!
So Crunchy Top is better than Cold Oven. The flavor is essentially the same since they are the same ingredients, but the texture of Crunchy Top was less dense. I think it is because air is added with the eggs beating for a minute each. Thus far Crunchy Top is the best of three cakes.
Up next is my mother’s recipe Chocolate which might be followed by a different Chocolate or I might stick a friends recipe in the middle if I can snag some Almond Extract.
Made my mother’s Chocolate Pound Cake. She lists margarine and I went for butter. There is a textural difference between mine and hers and I suspect it might be the difference between butter and margarine. Some pound cake recipes use butter and shortening in the same recipe, most likely to create a particular texture. My version is quite good, but just a bit drier crumb than hers and a lighter texture. Here is her recipe.
Chocolate Pound Cake 3 sticks margarine 3 cups sugar 5 eggs 3 cups flour 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 cup cocoa 1 1/4 cups milk 1 tsp vanilla Sift flour, baking powder, and cocoa twice. Cream margarine and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, blending well after each. Add vanilla. Add twice sifted dry ingredients alternately with milk. Pour batter into greased and floured tube pan. Bake at 325F for 85 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
I used butter and my baking time was 102 minutes. I’ll make it again with margarine and see if that makes a change to the texture or not.
My wife informed me yesterday the Cold Oven Pound Cake was quite good especially with vanilla ice cream or whipped topping with berries. So there you have it, Crunch Top is better than Cold Oven for eating by itself, but Cold Oven is no slouch, especially if served with ice cream or whipped topping.
Today I baked a Sour Cream Pound Cake from a friend’s recipe.
Sour Cream Cake 2 C sugar 2 sticks butter 6 eggs 8 oz Sour Cream 3 C plain flour 1/4 tsp soda 1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla Cream sugar, butter: add eggs and blend one at a time. Combine and sift dry ingredient and add in three parts and blend. Add vanilla and blend. Add sour cream and blend. Bake at 325F for 1 1/2 hours.
Last week’s Sour Cream Pound Cake, while delicious, had a lighter texture than what it should be for a pound cake. It was not quite as light as the first sour creak cake, but close. What was interesting is this was the first cake which baked for the amount of time indicated in the recipe.
This week the recipe is from a college friend. It was recited to her over the phone from her mom.
Chocolate Pound Cake 2 sticks butter 1/2 cup shortening 3 cups sugar 1 tsp vanilla 5 eggs 3 cups 5 tablespoons cocoa 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup milk Cream sugar, butter, and shortening. Add vanilla. Add eggs one at a time. Sift dry ingredients. Add dry batter in batches alternating with milk. Bake in greased and floured tube pan until a toothpick comes out clean. 325F for 1hr 20 min.
This one took 100 minutes in the oven and stuck near the top. It lost the crust edge while being removed from the pan. I patched it back together as best I could. It will taste just fine. It was a wet day, I wonder if that affected anything and may have contributed to the cake attaching itself to the pan around the top perimeter.
That looks incredible! Did you use a Bunt Cake (or tube) pan? Difficult to determine from the photo. I used a Bunt Cake pan with my first, and only, pound cake a few weeks ago and had a very difficult time getting it to come out of the pan even after using Pam to aid release.
It’s a tube pan. Pound cake really should be in a tube pan as opposed to a bundt pan, but use what you have. Butter or grease with shortening and then flour the pan to ease removal. Some bundt pans are incredibly difficult to release.
