Classic Pound Cake 3 Ways

A couple of weeks ago I decided to do a fondue. The fondue is another story entirely. It’s a story that involves a new fondue set, a sticker, a slight fire, and a pot full of once delicious but rendered inedible chocolate that tasted distinctly of smoke. Any way, these recipes come into play because I decided to make pound cakes to dip in the fondue.

Don’t feel overwhelmed by the thought of making pound cakes either. These do all the hard work in a food processor, which makes them very fast, and very easy, to make. So easy in fact that I’m pretty sure I’ll be making one when I finish this post.

What can I say, I’m in a good mood because it was supposed to be garbage day, but it’s not. The long weekend pushed it back to tomorrow. That makes today a very good day in my books.

Now, I made two pound cakes for the fondue, lemon and almond. Then Bo got home from work (just as I was taking them out of the oven). He became quite upset that there wasn’t a plain one, and asked me to make a third. I acted all put out, but really, they’re so easy that I didn’t mind. I didn’t tell Bo that though, I just added me being “put out” to my library of things to recall when I want something. And I have my eye on three coookbooks right now. I should really get to ordering those.

Speaking of cookbooks, that’s where I got this recipe. It’s from “The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook”. If you’re in the market for a new cookbook, you’d be wise to make it this one. I LOVE it, it’s my cooking bible, and I have yet to make anything from it that I didn’t love.

First up, whisk together some cake flour, baking powder, and salt. Now, I didn’t have any cake flour, so here’s the substitution for it: 1 cup cake flour = 7/8 cup all purpose flour + 2 tbsp corn starch. I just eye ball the 7/8 cup.

Then, in the bowl of a food processor put the sugar, eggs, vanilla. If you’re making the lemon cake, like I was here, you would also add lemon juice and lemon zest. If you’re making the almond cake, you would add the sliced almonds and almond extract here.

Process that all together, then with the machine running, pour in some melted butter.

Put the food processor mixture in a medium bowl, then shift the flour mixture into it in thirds. Mix the batter to incorporate the flour after each addition.

Here’s the mixed batter.

And here’s the batter in the pan.

For the almond batter, I threw some sliced almonds on top.

And my two baked pound cakes. I know the edges look burnt, but they weren’t, they were actually the best part to eat. The problem is with my tins, they’re horrible and they need to be replaced!

Make that, my three baked pound cakes. From left to right: plain, lemon, almond.

How about some closer looks. Almond:

The lemon: This one doesn’t rise quite as high, but that’s ok.

The plain, or vanilla, cake:

And here’s the inside: The most incredible part of these is how moist they are. You can literally here the moisture and all the little air bubbles popping when you squeeze a piece. So delicious!

On that note, I’m off to make some more of these, and to make Oliver some lunch.

Here’s your printable:

Classic Pound Cake 3 Ways

Yield: One 8½\" x 4½\" loaf

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 50 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Print

Ingredients

Classic Vanilla Pound Cake

• 1½ cups cake flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1¼ cups sugar
• 4 large eggs, room temperature
• 1½ tsp vanilla
• 16 tbsp butter, melted and hot

Lemon Pound Cake

• 2 tbsp grated lemon zest
• 2 tsp fresh lemon juice

Almond Pound Cake

• 1 tsp almond extract
• ¼ cup sliced almonds

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350ºF with a rack in the middle position. Grease and flour a loaf pan.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
5. To the bowl of a food processor add the sugar, eggs and vanilla. If you are making the lemon or almond pound cakes, add those ingredients here as well. Let the machine run for about 10 seconds, until well combined. With the machine running, pour the hot melted butter down the feed tube in a slow, steady stream. Pour the mixture into a large bowl.
7. Sift 1/3 of the flour mixture over the batter, then whisk gently until most of the lumps are gone. Repeat two more times until all the flour in incorporated.
9. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, then tap the pan on the counter a couple of times to release any large air bubbles.
11. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until only a few moist crumbs attach to a toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then flip out and place on a wire rack to finish cooling completely before serving.