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

FAQs

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

What flour is best for pound cake? I prefer to use unbleached all-purpose flour when making pounds cakes but cake flour can be used as well. Cake flour will give the cake a fluffier, tender crumb though, which is not really classic for pound cakes.

To summarize, applesauce is a secret weapon for creating moist and healthier cakes. Its natural sweetness and moisture make it a great substitute for high-fat ingredients like oil or butter. So go ahead, embrace the power of applesauce and elevate your cakes to new levels of deliciousness!

This traditional pound cake recipe is over 100 years old and is the original kind of pound cake: it contains 1 pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour with no salt, baking powder, or flavoring.

Preheat oven to 325°F (163°C). Not 350°F. Generously grease a 10-12 cup Bundt pan with butter or nonstick spray. Using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, beat the butter on high speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes.

Sifting helps break up any lumps or clumps in flour, ensuring that it is evenly distributed and incorporated into your batter or dough. It aerates the flour, giving your baked goods a much lighter, melt-in-your-mouth texture.

In addition to its delicious taste, butter adds richness and flavor to your baked goods. Different types of butter are available, but salted and unsalted butter are the two most commonly used in baking. As the name suggests, salted butter contains salt, and unsalted butter does not.

Leavening Agents

These are the key ingredients that make a cake rise. There are two types of leavening agents, chemical (baking soda and baking powder) and biological (yeast).

A leavening agent is baking soda, yeast or baking powder. It's that magical ingredient that makes your cakes rise.

Overbeating the eggs may cause the batter to overflow the sides of the pan during baking or create a fragile crust that crumbles and separates from the cake as it cools.

The oven temperature is too high. If the top crust forms and sets before the cake has finished rising, the middle will try to push through the crust as it continues to bake, causing it to crack and possibly dome. Check your oven with an oven thermometer and reduce the temperature accordingly if it is running hot.

What is the sad streak in pound 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.

A simple classic pound cake recipe does not include any chemical leavening (baking powder or baking soda). Instead, this cake relies solely on the air that is mixed into the batter during the creaming process for it to rise. This process is known as physical leavening.

Pound cake is SUPPOSED to be a little dense. But it's not supposed to feel heavy or dry. 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).

How many eggs are in a pound? Eggs vary in weight since not all eggs are the same. Large eggs tend to weigh just short of 2 ounces each. It takes between 8 and 9 large eggs to equal one pound.

For starters, cake flour is low-protein (typically 5–8% protein as compared to 10–13% for AP), and that's because it's milled from low-protein (a.k.a. soft) wheat. This means it does not produce as much gluten as regular AP flour and can yield more light, tender results.

Cake flour is a lower-protein flour; it has about 7% to 9% protein compared to the 10% to 12% protein in all-purpose flour. If you opt for all cake flour cookies, less gluten is formed when you mix the cookie dough. The resulting cookie consistency post-baking is delicate, softer, fluffier, and, well, more cake-like.

cake flour has a low protein content and high starch content. making it perfect for a super soft and fluffy texture. all purpose flour has a higher protein content. and will make a cake that is shorter and has a more coarse texture.

Because all-purpose flour is designed to work for every type of bake, its gluten content is moderate, at around 10 to 13%. Cake flour, however, has one of the lowest gluten contents, at around 7 to 9%, which makes a much softer, lighter crumb. Another important difference is grain size.