Heirloom Recipe: Grandma's Old Fashioned Pound Cake Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Which is better for pound cake cake flour or all-purpose flour? ›

Cake Flour: Cake flour is lighter than all-purpose flour and produces the best pound cake in my opinion. Since it's so light, the attention remains on the butter. All-purpose flour is simply too heavy for this pound cake recipe; the cake will be heavy as a brick. If needed, use this homemade cake flour substitute.

Extra sugar or leavening causes a cake to fall; extra flour makes it dry.

Bake at a lower temperature.

Pound cake takes longer to bake than many other types of cakes because of its dairy content. You can bake a pound cake in a loaf pan at 350° Fahrenheit, but you'll need to lower the temperature to 325° Fahrenheit and extend the bake time when baking in a Bundt pan.

Bleached and unbleached flour can be used interchangeably. Some believe that bleached flour is better when you want your baked good to have a really bright white color, like when you make a white cake; or a lighter, fluffier texture, like when you want to make extra fluffy pancakes.

Sift: Sifting the flour into the batter makes the cake lighter. It also breaks up any large clumps of flour, making it easier to incorporate into the batter.

Unlike layer cakes, which use a thin batter that should never fill the pan more than halfway (more on that here), pound cake batter is thick, and should fill the pan within an inch of the top to encourage a prominent crown.

Those gluey pound cake streaks happen when your over-cream the butter and sugar.

Pound cakes, in particular, are dense batters. In the oven, the outside begins to cook much faster than the inside; the crack is from the inner batter rising and releasing steam through the semi-cooked outer batter.

Even though your cake is completely baked, slicing into it, you may find a dense and damp streak in the center (I run into this issue a lot with pound cakes). This wet ring in cakes can be caused by the cake settling after baking. A cake settles dramatically like this when the eggs, butter and sugar are over creamed.

What causes a hole in a pound cake? ›

They`re the result of beaten-in air or of gases (from leavening agents) trapped inside starch (flour) or egg structures. The hallmark of a well-made cake is a network of uniform holes. You`re likely referring to some uncharacteristically large holes throughout the cake.

There are several possible causes for what is called a sad streak in a pound cake. One is that there wasn't enough stirring in the early stages of preparing the batter. The other is that the cake needs to 'set' the crumb when you first remove it from the oven.

The most common reasons a cake sinks in the middle include the following: The pan is too small. There's too much liquid. Opening the oven or moving pans during baking.

If it's dry, the cake may have been over-baked. Pound cake can also be too dry if you added too much flour (or not enough butter or sugar). Solution – You can try lowering the oven temperature. Or remove the cake from the oven a little earlier.

A cake with all-purpose flour substituted for cake flour is more likely to have a slightly coarser crumb, while a cake made with cake flour will have a finer, more even crumb and enhanced tenderness.

Use cake flour in recipes where you want an extra-light, extra-fluffy texture, like Angel Food Cake, Cream Cheese Pound Cake, or Buttermilk-Chocolate Cake. You can also use cake flour to bring a more tender crumb to other sweets, like Chocolate Crinkle Cookies.

Pound cake, in particular, bakes at a fairly moderate temperature. An oven that is too hot will cause the cake to set too quickly and prevent the cake from rising. An oven that is too cool can cause the cake to fall because it won't set quickly enough.

Your oven might run hot, or maybe you forgot to set a timer. You overmixed the batter, or you didn't measure correctly. Whatever happened, your cake isn't burnt, but it's also pretty dry. Don't toss it out just yet.