Third Time’s the Charm Pound Cake

The quest for the perfect pound cake recipe is over.  In case you were wondering, here it is!

Third Time’s the Charm Pound Cake

By weight:

1 lb high quality salted butter, softened

1 lb sugar

1 lb all purpose flour

1 lb eggs, beaten, room temperature

By measurement:

2/3 cup high quality whole milk, room temperature

1 Tablespoon high quality vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit.  Butter two 9 x 5 x 3 non-stick loaf pans.  Set the rack in the oven to the middle level.

Beat butter at medium high speed until very light and fluffy, at least 5 minutes.  Add sugar, continuing to beat, until sugar is completely incorporated and the mixture is not grainy at all.  Total time for butter and sugar is likely to be ten minutes.

Slowly add beaten eggs, about 1 tablespoon or so at a time, beating up to a minute after each addition.  Slowly mix in the milk.  Mix in the vanilla and beat another minute. Begin mixing in flour, but do so more slowly, and just until mixed in.

Spread evenly in the loaf pans and then run a knife through the batter to get out air bubbles.

Bake 50 minutes and check with a skewer.  If it comes out clean it is done.  May be an hour or more but don’t let it overbake.  The smell will also be a good sign to check.

Run a knife around the edges right away.  Cool on racks 15 minutes then remove from pan and let cool completely on baking racks.

Notes on this cake

If you happened to have been following along previously, you know that I have been trying to find a really good pound cake recipe to use to make a cake for a friend’s birthday.

This is the third try, and definitely the best.  It is no one recipe that I found, it was me working my way up from the basics, and taking into account all the different comments and recipes that I read through.

I decided to step back and take a pause and think about the pound cake.  One of the basic premises of a pound cake is that you use 1 pound each of butter, eggs, sugar, and flour.  So maybe that was one of the first things to do—not use a recipe where flour and sugar are measured in cups, and not use recipes that call for x number of eggs.

So I did lots of googling, and found a recipe that I thought had most of the basics of what I wanted to do, and read all the comments, and looked up other recipes, and read those comments.

Some key things were to weigh those ingredients.  So I got out my handy dandy kitchen scale, put the first bowl on it, zeroed it out, and scooped in flour.  Got another bowl, scooped in sugar.  Got another bowl, and broke eggs into that bowl until it weighed a pound.  The weight variation from what would have been cups (or six eggs) was tremendous.  I think it took 8 eggs for me to get a pound, and the recipe called for six.

Oh, I should also mention that I made sure to use the highest quality whole milk and butter I could get.  In this case, milk and butter from a local dairy, Shatto Dairy.  For such a simple cake, you want the ingredients to shine.  I also used salted butter based on notes I read somewhere—and did not add any salt later.

I also set out the butter, eggs and milk and let them come to room temperature before I began with my cake.

The next big tip was to beat everything longer than you think you need to.  I had read an article by a professional baker once where they said a common mistake was to not beat butter and sugar long enough to truly cream them.  Add that to different comments I read about the pound cake, and I ended up beating the heck out of that butter, and sugar.  About ten minutes in total.

Another tip was to beat the eggs before starting to add them to the mixture.  After I posted about doing this, a friend said that she always does that first.  I had no idea!  I’m definitely no baker.  Now I’m going to always do that.

I tried to follow suggestions to add the beaten egg a tablespoon at a time and beat a minute after each addition, but I got bored and impatient.  I didn’t pour it in all at once, but it ended up definitely being a little more than a tablespoon each time.  I did beat for a minute after each addition though.

After that I mixed in the vanilla, and then it was time for the flour.

Could I just mention here how good this smelled at this point?  And tasted, because you know you have to test the batter, right? (Yeah, I know about salmonella)

I think it was the first recipe I tried that suggested running a knife through the batter to get out air bubbles, and this seemed like a good idea, so I did it again on the other recipes.  Just remember that the batter is thicker than a more traditional cake batter.

I have this thing where I often think the smell is the first indicator that something is done.  And I think it is true of this cake too.  The smell of the baked pound cake really hit me at about 50 minutes, so I tested with a skewer, and sure enough it was done.

You definitely don’t want to overbake, so my suggestion is to test that cake at 50 minutes.  If it needs longer, fine, but it is a pretty sturdy cake and I don’t think opening and closing the oven after 50 minutes will hurt it.  Check it, and if it isn’t done, go another 5 minutes and check it again.

I ran a knife around the edges immediately, and set them on a baking rack to cool for 15 minutes.

This picture looks almost exactly the same as the earlier picture from the recipes I tried!  But this really is the third time’s the charm cake.

I personally would like it with some lemon rind or juice, but the birthday boy likes it plain, so plain it is.