Pound cake with 12 variations

[mesmerising]

After being a lurker here for years, I decided to share with everyone a delicious pound cake recipe, along with the 12 variations I used for my slices. I hope you enjoy!





Pound cake

Here is the recipe for the basic pound cake [adapted slightly from Nick Malgieri’s How to Bake (NY: Harper Collins, 1995), pp. 280-1]:

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks/225g butter (unsalted)
• 1 cup/250ml sugar (caster)
• 4 eggs
• Pinch of nutmeg
• 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¼ cup/62.5ml milk
• ¾ tsp baking powder
• 2 cups/250ml flour (minus 2 tablespoons)
• 2 tablespoons cornflour

Method:

1. Ensure your butter and eggs are at room temperature. Preheat oven to 160C/325F with a rack in the middle of the oven. Prepare a rectangular loaf pan, sides buttered, bottom lined with parchment or baking paper.
2. With a mixer or by hand, beat the butter and sugar until soft and light (or until your arm’s about to fall off). Beat in 3 eggs, one at a time. Beat in salt, nutmeg, and vanilla extract.
3. In a separate, small bowl (or large mug), combine the remaining egg with the milk.
4. In a third bowl, add the baking powder and the two flours. Stir and sift once.
5. Beat a third of the flour into the butter/sugar/egg mixture (first bowl). Beat in half of the milk/egg mixture (second bowl), then the flour again (third bowl), then the milk/egg (second bowl), and finally the flour (third bowl). There should be five additions, beginning and ending with the flour.
6. Pour mixture into the loaf pan. Bake at 160C/325F degrees for about 1 hour, or until a thin knife or toothpick inserted in the thickest part of the cake emerges clean. (My oven is a little tempera-ture-mental and needed about an extra 15 minutes on the lowest shelf.)
7. Cool on a rack in the pan for at least 30 minutes. Unmold, remove the bottom paper, wrap the cake, and cut on the following day-unless you’ve made this in the morning, in which case you can cut in the evening. You want to wait until the cake has cooled entirely before cutting, otherwise it will crumble and fall apart easily.
8. Cut with a sharp serrated or bread knife. Store in the fridge for a few days, or in the freezer for about a month.

The list of variations:

Day/Way #1: Au naturel
Day/Way #2: Jam and butter
Day/Way #3: Cinnamon “toast”
Day/Way #4: Amaretto
Day/Way #5: Simply fried
Day/Way #6: Chocolate-coated with custard
Day/Way #7: Wild about berries
Day/Way #8: A grilled pear-ing
Day/Way #9: French “toast”
Day/Way #10: Hong Kong-style French “toast”
Day/Way #11: Funky monkey sundae
Day/Way #12: Strawberries, cream, and cake

And a few photos:



#2: Jam and butter



#6: Chocolate-coated with custard



#7: Wild about berries



#11: Funky monkey sundae

To read about what inspired this pound cake project, and for the variation recipes, please see my blog posts: part 1 (#1-4), part 2 (#5-8), and part 3 (#9-12).

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a chance to enjoy the noms!