How To Make Pound Cake
Ahhh…pound cake. I like a good pound cake. It is so moist and dense and delicious slathered with lemon curd or butter. When I think about how to make pound cake, I like it even more since you can never really forget the recipe for pound cake – A pound of flour, a pound of sugar, a pound of butter, a pound of eggs. I’ll admit that I like a pound cake that is a little softer, so I cut the butter and add a special ingredient – yogurt. Greek yogurt to be specific. And I am not much for a plain pound cake. When I am contemplating how to make pound cake tastier, lemon always comes to mind.
How To Make Pound Cake – Reduced Butter?
Yes, it can be a struggle to reduce the amount of butter from a recipe, but I don’t think anything is really lost. Greek yogurt (in fact, it is fat free greek yogurt that I use) brings its own certain moistness and richness to the cake. No, it is not that new or innovative. People have been adding sour cream to pound cakes for ages. Adding greek yogurt is a riff on that which helps make a great cake and cuts out a few calories, too.
There are implications to reducing the butter though. Since creaming of the butter is all about helping the cake rise, taking some out means that there could be issues. To help ensure good rising, I add a little baking powder to get the job done. Traditional? No. Does it matter? Not really. Does it work? Yes.
How To Make Pound Cake – Room Temperature Ingredients
Another important piece of pound cake making is ensuring that the butter and eggs are at room temperature. Both butter and eggs play a role in leavening and both do a better job if they are at room temperature. This is just a tidbit of information that helps to make the best cake possible. It might also be good party discussion material, but I have never tried it.
How To Make Pound Cake – A Cream Cake
At its foundation, the making of a pound cake is all about creaming. Classically, wet ingredients are creamed together to ensure leavening. Dry ingredients are then slowly incorporated so the bubbles created in the wet ingredients are not all flattened. For a pound cake, it all starts with creaming of the butter and sugar. Eggs are added one at a time. Flavourings – vanilla, lemon juice, lemon zest, etc – are then whipped in. Dry ingredients are then added. A balloon whisk (lots of work, but do-able), hand mixer, or stand mixer all work fine for this.
The how to make a pound cake video is below and the lemon greek yogurt pound cake recipe follows.
- 2 cups of flour
- 2 tsp of baking powder
- 1/2 tsp of salt
- 1 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup of sugar
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 cup of fat free greek yogurt
- 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice
- 1 tbsp lemon zest
- 2 tsp of vanilla extract
- powdered sugar.
- Pre-heat the oven to 350F.
- Butter and flour a 9in. springform pan.
- In a small bowl, mix the dry ingredients together. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, using a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.
- Add the eggs to the butter and sugar one at a time, adding the next egg after the previous has been fully incorporated.
- Add the yogurt, juice, zest, and vanilla. Whip them into the mixture.
- Add the dry ingredients one heaping tablespoon at a time with the mixer on low scraping the batter down the sides of the bowl as needed with a spatula.
- When the dry ingredients are just incorporated, pour the batter into the prepared pan. Smooth the top with a spatula.
- Bake at 350F for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Tent with foil if the top browns too fast.
- Let the cake cool 10 minutes then remove it from the pan and cool completely.
- Sprinkle the top with powdered sugar.
It is worth mentioning that this pound cake is lovely slathered with a little lemon curd, too! More lemony goodness is always welcome!
I hope you enjoy!
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Have you ever made pound cake with greek yogurt? Let us know in the comments or on Facebook.
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