By Ann Cipperly
Pound cakes are one of the easiest desserts to prepare and the most versatile. While there are several flavor varieties, a plain pound cake can be embellished with chocolate or caramel frosting, sliced and served with whipped cream and fruit or topped with ice cream and sauces. A pound cake is also good for making attractive trifles layered with pudding, whipped cream and fruit.
If you have extra eggs on hand, bake a pound cake or two and tuck one in the freezer for another time. Now that many of us are home bound, we can fill the freezer with delectable treats to serve later when we can get together with family and friends.
Like many of you, I am looking forward to better days when our family and friends can visit, and we can sit down to celebrate with a meal. Until then I am putting some dishes in the freezer and cleaning closets. I am going to try to get the copper and silver polished to have it ready when guests can visit. I might even press linens, but I would rather be in the kitchen baking.
I have made so many whipping cream pound cakes over the years that I have memorized the recipe. I find it easy to get a pound cake going while I am preparing a meal. While a Bundt pan makes an attractive cake, I generally prefer to bake pound cakes in loaf pans. That way I have two, with one to freeze or share. It is also easier to slice the cake for making trifles or serving with whipped cream and strawberries.
Pound cakes were originally created with a one pound each of butter, sugar, eggs and flour. The basic cake has changed over the years, but the tender, buttery flavor is wonderful comfort food. Since they freeze well, pound cakes are great to have in the freezer for bereavement.
The versatile cakes are also good to keep in the freezer for assembling a dessert quickly. A pound cake is scrumptious with ice cream smothered with fudge or caramel sauce. The simple cakes become decadent when covered with caramel frosting or sliced and filled with chocolate icing.
Since pound cakes are well-liked by my family, I began collecting recipes years ago. Although it is difficult to beat the basic pound cake, these others are good too and offer variety.
I generally use unsalted butter in baking. If the recipe calls for milk, cream or buttermilk, add it alternately with flour, beginning and ending with flour. While most recipes call for a teaspoon of vanilla, I generally use two or three teaspoons like mother always did for cakes.
I adapted the Lemon Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Lemon Glaze to serve as one of the desserts at a son’s rehearsal dinner. I was developing recipes for desserts that didn’t have to be refrigerated and would hold up well. I prepared the recipe in a large cookie sheet with a rim to cut into squares.
The lemon syrup soaks into the cake making it super moist and infusing a refreshing, tangy lemon flavor. The Lemon Glaze provides a sweet finish to the cake. The cake is also good served plain or with the soaking syrup or glaze but not both.
Some relish pound cakes so much I have heard friends say they serve it toasted for breakfast or slices are used for making French toast.
Following is a variety of yummy pound cakes to treat your family and for filling the freezer.
Cipperly can be contacted at recipes@cipperly.com.
Recipes:
Buttery Whipping Cream Pound Cake
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups sugar
6 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whipping cream
2 to 3 tsp. vanilla
Cream butter and sugar well. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour and cream alternately. Stir in vanilla.
Pour into a well-greased Bundt pan, tube pan or two loaf pans. Bake at 300 degrees and test at 1 hour and 15 minutes. Ovens and pans vary. May take 1½ hours.
Lemon Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Lemon Glaze
I created this pound cake to bake in a cookie sheet for lemon bars, but it is also good in a Bundt pan. The cake is also good plain without the soaking syrup or glaze. Another option is using the soaking syrup or glaze but not both.
3 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
3 cups sugar
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
1 ½ Tbsp. vanilla
1 Tbsp. grated lemon peel
6 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
¼ tsp. salt
Soaking Syrup
¾ cup fresh lemon juice
¾ cup granulated sugar
Lemon Glaze
1 ¾ cup powdered sugar
3 Tbsp. milk
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
For Cake or Bars: Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Grease and flour Bundt pan or large cookie sheet with a rim.
Using electric mixer, cream butter in large bowl until light. Add cream cheese and beat until well combined. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add lemon juice, vanilla and lemon peel. Add eggs two at a time, beating until combined. Add flour and salt and beat until batter is just smooth. Pour into prepared pan.
For large cookie sheet, bake 20 minutes or until cake tests done. For Bundt pan, bake for about one hour and a half or until tests done. Cool.
For Soaking Syrup: In small saucepan, combine lemon juice and sugar; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, stirring, until sugar dissolves, about two minutes. Remove from heat. With a toothpick, poke holes in top of cake or bars. Drizzle all of the syrup over top.
For Lemon Glaze.: Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl. Spoon over cake or bars.
Brown Sugar Pound Cake with Caramel Glaze
Cora Reames
3 cups flour
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
1 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1½ cups (3 sticks) butter, softened, plus extra for greasing pan
1 lb. box dark brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
5 eggs
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour 10-inch tube pan. In mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt; stir with fork. Set aside. Into small bowl, pour milk and vanilla; set aside.
With mixer, beat butter at high speed until light and fluffy. Add brown sugar in three batches, then white sugar, beating well. Add eggs one by one, beating well after each addition.
Reduce speed to low, add half flour mixture, then half milk, beating until flour and milk have disappeared into batter. Add remaining flour and milk.
Pour into greased pan. Bake about 1 hour and 10 minutes or until wooden stick inserted into center comes out clean.
Leave cake on wire rack 20 minutes. Loosen cake from pan with table knife and turn onto wire rack or plate to cool. When cool, pour Caramel Glaze over top.
Caramel Glaze
1 stick butter
1 cup light brown sugar
½ cup evaporated milk
4 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
In large saucepan, place butter and brown sugar over medium heat. Stir until butter melts and blends with brown sugar to smooth sauce, 2-3 minutes.
Add milk and let icing come to gentle boil. Stir well, remove from heat, add powdered sugar and vanilla. Beat well until glaze thickens and loses a little of its shine, 1-2 minutes. Pour over cake.
Sour Cream Pound Cake
Betty Traylor
Lela Campbell’s recipe
3 cups plain White Lily Flour
3 cups sugar
2 sticks butter
6 large eggs
1 and 1/3 cups sour cream
¼ tsp. baking soda
2 Tbsp. pure vanilla
Cream sugar and butter together; add eggs, one at a time. Add flour alternating with sour cream. Mix soda with last third of sour cream. Add vanilla.
Pour into Bundt or tube pan that has been sprayed with Baker’s Joy or greased with Crisco and sprinkled with flour. Dust off excess flour.
Bake at 275 degrees for 90 minutes. Remove from oven. Cool in pan 10 to 15 minutes.
Cream Cheese Pound Cake
Bill New
1 ½ sticks butter, softened
8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
Blend butter and cream cheese in electric mixer until creamy. Add sugar until blended. Add eggs, one at a time, and then slowly mix in flour. Blend in vanilla extract.
Bake at 300 degrees in greased tube pan for 1 hour and 40 minutes. Cool in pan on wire rack until completely cool.
Maimie’s Pound Cake with Pineapple or Coconut Filling
AnnaLee Gardner
2 sticks butter, room temperature
3 cups sugar
6 eggs
1 cup whipping cream or sour cream
3 cups sifted Swan’s Down cake flour
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. lemon extract
Cream together butter and sugar. Add one egg at a time to mixture. Beat in sifted flour alternating with whipping cream. Mix in a pinch of salt and the almond, vanilla and lemon extracts together after the above ingredients are well incorporated.
Bake cake at 325 degrees. For a 4 layer cake, bake 25 to 30 minutes; for a tube pan, bake 1 hour and 30 minutes or for a long pan bake for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
Ice cake with pineapple or coconut filling. On a four-layer cake, spread filling between layers and on top of cake.
Pineapple Filling
1 stick butter
1 large can crushed pineapple
2 cups sugar
3 Tbsp. flour
Melt butter in saucepan. Add crushed pineapple and sugar mixed with the flour. Bring to a boil and simmer, stirring often for about 45 minutes or until thickened. Spread filling between layers and on top of cake.
Coconut Filling
2 Tbsp. flour
1 cup Carnation Evaporated Milk
Juice from 1 coconut (all of it)
Grate coconut and reserve
2 cups sugar
Butter
Vanilla
Put all ingredients except coconut flakes in a boiler and cook. When it starts to boil begin adding coconut a little at a time. Add butter the size of an egg and vanilla at the end.
Buttermilk Pound Cake
3 cups sifted flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup butter, room temperature
3 cups sugar
5 eggs, separated
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. almond extract, optional
Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl; mix well. Beat butter and sugar in large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks one at a time.
Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla and almond extracts.
Beat eggs whites until stiff peaks form. Fold into batter. Spoon into greased Bundt pan. Bake at 325 degrees for about 1½ hours or until tests done.
Mom’s Chocolate Pound Cake
2 sticks butter
½ cup shortening
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
3 cups plain flour
½ tsp. baking powder
4 Tbsp. cocoa
1 cup milk
2 tsp. vanilla
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cream butter and shortening; add sugar and eggs. Sift dry ingredients; add alternately with milk to creamed mixture. Stir in vanilla. Bake in a greased tube pan for about 80 minutes or until tests done. Cool and frost.
Frosting
¾ stick butter, softened
5 Tbsp. cocoa
6 Tbsp. milk
1 box confectioners’ sugar
Cream butter and cocoa; add sugar alternately with milk. Mix until blended and smooth.
Banana Pound Cake with Caramel Glaze
1 cup butter, room temperature
½ cup shortening
2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup sugar
5 eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
½ cup milk
1 large ripe banana, mashed
1 cup chopped pecans, optional
1 tsp. vanilla
Caramel Glaze
Beat butter and shortening until creamy; gradually add sugars, beating until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Combine flour, baking powder, soda and salt. Add alternately to mixture with milk. Stir in banana, pecans and vanilla. Pour into a greased and floured 10 inch tube pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 5 minutes until tests done. When cool, drizzle with Caramel Glaze.
Caramel Glaze
¼ cup butter
¼ cup firmly packed brown sugar
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup whipping cream
1 tsp. vanilla
Combine all ingredients except vanilla in a saucepan; bring to a boil stirring often and boil one minute without stirring. Add vanilla. Will thicken as it cools.
Chocolate Whipping Cream Pound Cake
Virginia “Gigi” Blalock
2 sticks butter, softened
3 cups sugar
6 eggs, room temperature
½ pint (1 cup) whipping cream
3 cups cake flour, sifted
3 Tbsp. cocoa
1 cup finely chopped pecans
Do not preheat oven. Mix butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating one minute between each egg. Add cocoa to flour. Alternately add whipping cream and flour in portions to the butter-sugar mixture. Stir in chopped pecans.
Pour batter into a lightly greased and floured tube or Bundt pan and place in a cold oven. Bake at 300 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Use a cake tester. The batter can also be baked in 2 large loaf pans or 4 smaller loaf pans, just bake for a shorter time and test for doneness.
Freezes well.
Caramel Icing
Virginia “Gigi” Blalock
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 stick butter
½ cup evaporated milk
1 box confectioner’s sugar
Mix first 4 ingredients in saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Using mixer, add confectioner’s sugar. May need to add a small amount of evaporated milk when icing the cake to keep consistency.
Chocolate Icing
Virginia “Gigi” Blalock
1 ½ cups sugar
1 square unsweetened chocolate
½ cup evaporated milk
¼ stick butter
1 cup miniature marshmallows
Cook sugar, chocolate and milk to softball stage (234 on candy thermometer). Remove from heat and add butter and marshmallows.
Sour Cream Pound Cake with Lemon
Jo Ellen James
1 cup butter, room temperature
3 cups sugar
1 cup sour cream, room temperature
3 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. lemon extract
3 cups sifted flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
6 eggs, room temperature
Cream butter and sugar. Add sour cream and flavorings. Sift together flour and baking soda. Add eggs 2 at the time, alternating with flour until all has been added. Beat well. Bake in a greased Bundt pan 1 hour 10 minutes at 325 degrees.