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Author Topic: Pound Cake  (Read 3169 times)

Offline MDixon

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Re: Pound Cake
« Reply #15 on: May 12, 2020, 11:46:34 am »
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 Edit: May 12, 2020, 01:51:07 pm by MDixon »
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Offline MDixon

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Re: Pound Cake
« Reply #16 on: May 18, 2020, 07:25:49 am »
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.

« Last Edit: May 18, 2020, 10:55:33 am by MDixon »
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Offline KellerBrauer

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Re: Pound Cake
« Reply #17 on: May 18, 2020, 09:52:00 am »
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.






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.
Joliet, IL

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Offline MDixon

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Re: Pound Cake
« Reply #18 on: May 18, 2020, 10:56:11 am »
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.
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Offline KellerBrauer

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Re: Pound Cake
« Reply #19 on: May 18, 2020, 01:30:16 pm »
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.

Thanks!  I'll try that next time!
Joliet, IL

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Offline MDixon

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Re: Pound Cake
« Reply #20 on: May 26, 2020, 07:07:07 am »
The chocolate pound cake from a friend's recipe was top notch in terms of flavor. I may tweak it slightly and make it again as my own. Hopefully we won't lose any additional cake tops getting them out of the pan.

The pound cake this week was a recipe requested by my wife. It was one she found on the web for Cream Cheese Pound Cake. My father had send me some recipes from my mother's assortment of local cookbooks and one of those was Easy Cream Cheese Pound Cake. The only differences were the one from the web used butter as opposed to margarine, the one from the web used salt, and the one from the web cooked in two loaf pans. I decided to use the recipe sent to me, but to add the salt and use butter.

Easy Cream Cheese Pound Cake

6 eggs (room temp)
3 cups flour
3 cups sugar
8 ounces cream cheese (room temp)
3 sticks butter (room temp)
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream margarine and cream cheese together. Add sugar. Add eggs, one at a time and mix well after each addition. Add vanilla, more can be added if desired. Add flour in batches and mix well. Bake in greased and floured tube pan for 1 1/2 hours.


Took 105 minutes to bake, but it looks fantastic. Decided to add more butter when I grease the pan and the cake slid out with no issues at all and almost no crumb left behind.

Tastes great, but the salt is evident. Our consensus is to leave out the salt so I put a strikethrough on that part of the recipe.

« Last Edit: May 26, 2020, 05:19:30 pm by MDixon »
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Offline MDixon

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Re: Pound Cake
« Reply #21 on: June 02, 2020, 07:04:37 am »
The cake this week is Million Dollar Pound Cake from Southern Living. The recipe is here:
https://www.southernliving.com/recipes/million-dollar-pound-cake

Of the seven pound cakes prior to this one none used four sticks of butter. The most was three and typically the number of eggs was reduced when another stick is added. This one is 4 sticks of butter and 6 eggs, but it does add another cup of flour. I suspect a good recipe tweak would be to reduce the butter by a stick, use 5 eggs, and reduce the flour by a cup.

Anyway, the temp for baking is the lowest yet at 300F. My tube pan started to leak about 10 minutes in so I quickly put it on a sheet pan. I suspect the batter is too runny after the butter melts in the recipe. All pound cakes seem to melt into the pan and then grow as they bake.

This cake took 125 minutes to bake at 300F. To me the flour and butter are overdone. Most recipes are simple, 2 sticks butter, 6 eggs, and three cups flour. This uses 4 sticks butter, 6 eggs, and four cups of flour. I'd tweak the butter, eggs, and flour down to the norm. At times butter lovers will up the butter to 3 sticks and reduce the eggs to 5. This would be my second suggestion.

It's a good cake, nice texture, good crust, but I can detect the flour and I don't think all the butter adds to the party.


« Last Edit: June 03, 2020, 06:30:26 am by MDixon »
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Offline MDixon

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Re: Pound Cake
« Reply #22 on: June 09, 2020, 05:48:35 am »
This week's cake was just called Pound Cake, but added lemon extract so I'm going to dub it Pound Cake with Lemon Extract. I didn't notice the recipe instructions until it was too late so I followed the typical way to make a pound cake. Cream fats, cream fats and sugar, add eggs one at a time, alternate dry ingredients with wet, add extract(s). Below is what the recipe says to do, keep in mind we should end up at the same place, but just wanted to point out this recipe is different than what I actually did. Another change was the butter was set out the night before where the previous cakes the butter was set out the morning before the cake was made for at most an hour.

Pound Cake (with Lemon Extract)

2 Sticks Butter
5 Tablespoons shortening
3 Cups Flour
3 Cups Sugar
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Cup Milk
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
1 Teaspoon Lemon Extract
5 Eggs

Cream butter and shortening. Sift flour, sugar, and baking powder three times. Mix dry ingredients alternately with milk, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Add eggs last, one at a time, beating only until yellow disappears. Add vanilla and lemon extract. Bake at 325F for 1 hour in 10" tube pan.


Total cooking time was 80 minutes, the flat top made it somewhat difficult to check if baking was done. The batter was really nice in the pan, not as thick as some others and the lemon was subtle. Looking forward to our taste test tonight.

« Last Edit: June 09, 2020, 09:16:48 am by MDixon »
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Offline MDixon

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Re: Pound Cake
« Reply #23 on: June 15, 2020, 06:17:56 am »
The pound cake for this week is Five-Flavor Pound Cake from a friend's mother's recipe. I misread the ingredients and thought it had Almond as one of the five as opposed to butter so mine is slightly different. I don't care much for imitation Coconut, but did put it in. My five flavors were:
Vanilla, Almond, Lemon, Rum, and Coconut
I also used the standard method of making the cake as opposed to the directions in the recipe. I'm fairly confident one could just dump everything in at one time and mix for a very long time and the cake would still turn out good. Anyway, I don't plan to experiment with folding eggs in anymore or other non-traditional methods. I'll change ingredients, but not methods.

Five-Flavor Pound Cake

5 eggs
2 sticks butter
1/2 cup shortening
3 cups sugar
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk
1 tsp coconut extract
1 tsp rum extract
1 tsp butter extract
1 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat eggs until fluffy and lemon colored and set aside. Cream butter, shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Sift flour and baking powder together and add alternatively with milk to the creamed mixture. Add all five extracts. Fold in eggs and spoon mixture into a greased 10" tube pan. Bake at 325F for 1 hour or until cake tests done. (*Glaze while hot)

(Note: there was also a *glaze recipe, basically 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water and all five of the extracts. Directions were to boil and pour over cake before removing from the pan. I did not use the glaze)


Total baking time was 85 minutes and I lost some of the crust removing from the pan. In the crumbs the coconut is notable, not too strong, but not a flavor I really desire in pound cake. I expect this one to be around the house for awhile.



« Last Edit: June 15, 2020, 09:18:59 am by MDixon »
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Offline MDixon

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Re: Pound Cake
« Reply #24 on: June 26, 2020, 06:10:01 am »
The last cake is a hard pass for us. Too much coconut. My wife gave up eating it after two pieces so it took forever to consume.

This week is a Chocolate Pound Cake hopefully using what I have learned. I am trying to create a base recipe from which most every flavor of cake can emerge and which can have recipe substitutions with ease. So here goes with my first stab at a recipe:

Chocolate Pound Cake
by Mike Dixon

2 Sticks Butter
1/2 Cup Shortening
3 Cups Sugar
5 Large Eggs
3 Cups Flour
1/2 Cup Cocoa Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Cup Heavy Cream
1 Teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract

Cream together room temperature butter and shortening, add sugar and cream until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, mixing until smooth. Sift Flour, Cocoa Powder, and Baking Powder three times and add to batter alternating with Heavy Cream. Start and end with dry ingredients. Scrape down bowl twice. Add vanilla extra and mix until smooth. Bake at 325F for 90 minutes or until a cake tester come out clean.

It actually took 100 minutes, but I've found my baking times seem a little long as compared to most recipes so I'll leave the recipe as 90 minutes.

The subs one should consider depending upon the ingredients on hand are:
Milk for Heavy Cream (will not be as crunchy in the crust)
Remove Shortening and add 1 Large Egg (will be a little less moist)

I plan for one more cake in this series, a plain vanilla cake OR one which has some lemon extract with the vanilla. This was cake number 11 and the plan is to end on cake number 12.

« Last Edit: June 26, 2020, 10:16:18 am by MDixon »
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Offline MDixon

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Re: Pound Cake
« Reply #25 on: July 04, 2020, 12:33:50 pm »
Today was my 12th and final Pound Cake for a while. Decided to go with a Vanilla and Lemon cake using my standard recipe. Looking forward to cutting into this bad boy. Here is a copy of my base recipe with some suggested variations and substitutions as well as a picture of the cake.





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Offline tommymorris

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Re: Pound Cake
« Reply #26 on: July 04, 2020, 08:31:55 pm »
Today was my 12th and final Pound Cake for a while. Decided to go with a Vanilla and Lemon cake using my standard recipe. Looking forward to cutting into this bad boy. Here is a copy of my base recipe with some suggested variations and substitutions as well as a picture of the cake.






The pound cakes all looked delicious. I want to make one sometime. They are also huge. They look like they can serve 10 people.