The Best Pound Cake

[CanadianBakin']

I have found the best Lemon Pound Cake!! I'm not a big fan but this recipe has converted me. It's in Fine Cooking's Holiday Baking edition from Christmas 2003 although they have dated it winter 2004. It's actually an Orange-Poppyseed Pound Cake that I adapted to just lemon. It has a wonderfully tart glaze and a rich cake made with butter of course and a bit of cream cheese. I guess since I've changed some of the ingredients I could probably type it out for you. If you're interested, let me know.

[mignardise]

Thanks for the replies.

The Fran Gage cake looks yummy. I know the added melted chocolate makes for a great tasting cake, but I am looking to bake off many pans at once, and trying to eliminate that task of chopping/melting chocolate.

And I have the Fine Cooking issue, pg. 47

I figured you eliminated the poppyseeds, and subbed the orange for lemon, and with the added cream cheese and extra yolks, sounds like it would be very moist. I have to try that recipe, as I am looking for some new pound cake recipes.

Any more great recipes out there to share, greatly appreciated.

[CanadianBakin']

My best tip for the lemon pound cake is to get a flavour injector or a syringe to inject the glaze into the cake and then brush the remaining glaze over top. It makes it absolutely to die for. I bought a needle with a large syringe from our local veterinarian.

[Amanda2004]

I'm a big fan of the chocolate pound cake recipe in Alice Medrich's book Chocolate and the Art of Low Fat Desserts. It's always moist and I've kept it refrigerated wrapped in plastic for up to three days. Fantastic with some lightly sweetned whipped cream.

[Patrick S]

too add to this I'd like to request if I may. lemon pound cake recipe..hate to admit, but I love Entenmens....I'm on a baking spree..so help a youngster out!

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The Lemon Poundcake in the "Tea Time" episode of America's Test Kitchen (season 4) is delicious and easy. It is the poundcake recipe I had been wishing for all my life. We couldn't stop eating it in my house. You need to register on the site, but it's free.

Tea Time (Lemon Poundcake)

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I hope no one will mind if I derail this thread a little to discuss lemon pound cakes, but I made this cake tonight. I have three lemon pound cake recipes I want to tryover the next week or so -- the one you posted, one with buttermilk from Sherry Yard's The Secrets of Baking, and a sour cream lemon pound cake recipe I found on the web.

I haven't eaten a slice yet, but I''ll post my impression when I do. Thanks for posting the link to the recipe.

Edited January 10, 2005 by Patrick S (log)

[Luckylies]

^

yum

[bleudauvergne]

My favourite Chocolate Pound Cake recipe has cocoa and bittersweet chocolate in the recipe.

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I attest to the greatness of Swisskaese's favorite choclate pound cake recipe! Delicious, dense, and chocolatey.

[etalanian]

Anyone have a great recipe for a moist, light but dense, delicious pound cake that can be flavored many different ways?

[duckduck]

Here's a great resource for pound cake recipes. The website is a gem. Scroll way down the list until you hit the "p"s.

http://www.labellecuisine.com/Archives/ind...pe_archives.htm

[xdrixn]

the elvis # cake in the maida heatter book of great desserts is awesome. I'd give it to you but it's in a box and I'm about to move but when I unpack I'll give it to you if no one has done so.

[Becca Porter]

This recipe also has an Elvis reference at the bottom. I don't know if the recipes are similar. All I can tell you is that my sister and I had a massive pound cake bake-off and this recipe won by a landslide. PLEASE try it and report back it will be well worth it. Really try it now .

P.S. Make sure you start it in a cold oven as written!

Perfect Pound Cake

1 cup unsalted butter, 1 teaspoon salt

3 cups granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon baking powder

*5 large eggs, 2 teaspoons vanilla

3 cups all-purpose flour, 1 cup whipping cream

(Sift 3 times before measuring)

Butter and flour 2 9by5 inch loaf pans.

Whisk salt and baking powder into presifted flour. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar together in an electric mixer until light, fluffy and almost white, 4 to 5 minutes, stopping mixer once or twice to scrape down sides. Add eggs one at a time slowly, beating well after each addition. Add one third of flour mixture into the mixer set at low speed. Add half the whipping cream. Continue alternating flour and cream, ending with flour. Add vanilla. With rubber spatula scrape down sides and bottom until completely mixed. Pour into loaf pans, up to 2/3 full.

**Start in a cold oven**.

Place pans on middle rack of oven. Turn oven to 325 degrees. Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. (Note: It only took mine 55 minutes, so check early)

*You can also do a variation. You can add up to 7 eggs. I did 5 eggs and an extra yolk. Supposedly the 7 egg version is Elvis’s favorite pound cake.

Edited January 25, 2006 by Becca Porter (log)

[Becca Porter]

I copied and pasted the above recipe from my WordPerfect. I am sorry it is all smushed together, but I can't seem to fix it. Once again try it .

[srhcb]

Just for the fun of it, try the original recipe:

1 lb Eggs = 8 ex lg

1 lb Butter = 4 sticks

1 lb Sugar = 2.25 cups

1 lb Flour = 4 cups

It's "moist, dense, and delicious" and "can be flavored many different ways"

SB (but, as you may already have guessed, it ain't "light")

[xdrixn]

Sorry, Thisis the elvis # cake, I forgot I put it in my recipe book, quadrupled it and converted it to grams.

pound cake

900 g butter

2750 g sugar

28 eggs

1800 g cake flour

15 g salt

30 g bp

1 l cream

optional 230 g malt

or juice and zest from 12 lemons

[etalanian]

These are all greatrecipes to test. Thanks so much!

Eileen

[shaloop]

Just for the fun of it, try the original recipe:

1 lb Eggs = 8 ex lg

1 lb Butter = 4 sticks

1 lb Sugar = 2.25 cups

1 lb Flour = 4 cups

It's "moist, dense, and delicious" and "can be flavored many different ways"

SB (but, as you may already have guessed, it ain't "light")

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I once did pound cake trials and started off with this basic recipe. It looked and tasted very good, but was very heavy. I then started tweaking to get the flavor I liked. I finally got to the perfect poundcake recipe. Moist, light, flavorful and smooth. And promptly lost the recipe. I made so many, I can't for the life of me remember the "perfect" recipe. (I have about 10 recipes and variances written down in the notebook I was working from). I guess I have to start over. But I know the recipe had milk and baking powder.

Oh, I do have a cream cheese poundcake recipe, though, that is wonderful and doesn't use a raising agent. Let me know if you would like it.

[Jaymes]

I think we've done other pound cake threads here, so you might try doing a search. There was lots of good info in them, I think.

But as for me, after years of trying every recipe out there, I settled on the Cook's Illustrated recipe. And in my opinion, it's the best.

You can indeed make many variations, and they give instructions for several, including orange or citrus pound cake, and ginger pound cake, which has small flecks of crystalized ginger in it.

Absolutely delicious.

[Swisskaese]

This is the recipe that my grandmother always makes:

Million Dollar Pound Cake

1 lb. Butter, softened

3 C Sugar

6 Eggs

4 C all-purpose Flour

3/4 C Milk

1 tsp Almond Extract

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Cream butter, gradually add sugar, beating well at medium speed. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.

Add flour to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour. Mix, just until blended after each addition. Stir in extracts.

Pour batter into a greased and floured 10" tube pan. Bake at 300º for 1 hour and 40 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 minutes; remove from pan, and cool on a wire rack.

I will put into RecipeGullet later. It is delcious. I haven't made it in a long time. If I made it now, I would try reducing the amount of sugar.

[etalanian]

Oh, I do have a cream cheese poundcake recipe, though, that is wonderful and doesn't use a raising agent. Let me know if you would like it.

Yes! I would love it! Thanks.

After I finish the project I'm working on now, I am going to try making some of these recipes. Anyone else game - want to try a bake-off for the best pound cake?

Eileen

[maggie]

The "Elvis Presley's Favorite Pound Cake" in last year's Music Issue of Gourmet is fantastic. Be sure to follow all the admonishments about over-beating. You cannot over-beat a pound cake, which is what I think they mean in the name, rather than that pound-pound-pound nonsense!

Well, I can't quickly find how to insert the link, but just go to epicurious.com and type in the title of the recipe. It's really yummy, and no annoying separating of eggs or whipping the whites separately. I hate that!

[Ling]

Oh, I do have a cream cheese poundcake recipe, though, that is wonderful and doesn't use a raising agent. Let me know if you would like it.

Yes! I would love it! Thanks.

After I finish the project I'm working on now, I am going to try making some of these recipes. Anyone else game - want to try a bake-off for the best pound cake?

Eileen

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Here's a recipe I used: cream cheese pound cake

I've used probably 15 different recipes over the years...including all the popular ones on Epicurious (like the cream cheese one I linked above). I'll be interested to know which one you all think is the best, since I haven't made a pound cake in the last year, and I don't remember which recipe I chose as a "winner"!

Here is another I've tried and liked: yellow vanilla pound cake

Edited January 27, 2006 by Ling (log)

[WhiteTruffleGirl]

For your very basic pound cake, I like Bo Friberg's recipe a lot. He keeps it extraordinarily simple as a good pound cake should be.

[shaloop]

I put the Cream Cheese Poundcake recipe into Recipe Gullet here.

Hope you enjoy!

[miladyinsanity]

Acid will help lighten a pound cake. At least, that's my grandpa's theory who passed it on to my mom who passed it on to me.

What we do is add a teaspoon of lime/lemon juice per 4 ounces of butter. First cream the butter/sugar, add in the juice and beat it, before adding eggs.

[divalasvegas]

As I was reading through this thread etalanian I remembered a recipe for pound cake from Pastry Chef Gale Gand's Food Network show, "Sweet Dreams." I recall her saying that this recipe reflects how the first pound cakes were flavored. The flavoring agents are brandy, rosewater, and nutmeg (but no vanilla) for instance. Here's the link:

Gale Gand's Purely Pound Cake

I haven't made it, but it sounds delicious.