Pound Cake

Weigh out one pound each of butter, sugar, eggs and flour. Named for its use of four ingredients in equal weights, this cake was made, before leavening agents became widespread, by mixing the batter by hand for a long time to work air into it. Pound cake originated in Britain and spread to American homes, to France as quatre-quarts, and to Latin America as panqué and ponqué. Starting from the equal-proportion formula, many variations emerged, including differences in the type of flour, the way air is incorporated, and the fruit added to celebration cakes.

Aerating the butter and adding the eggs little by little

Mixing butter and sugar to incorporate air is the basic way to make pound cake batter. The butter should be neither a cold block nor a melted liquid, but soft enough to change shape when pressed. If it is too hard, it is difficult to incorporate air; if it is too soft, it has trouble holding the air bubbles it has taken in. These fine air bubbles expand during baking and make the batter rise.

The eggs are also brought to the same temperature and added a little at a time. Eggs contain a lot of water, and the yolks help oil and water blend together. By thoroughly incorporating each addition into the butter mixture, the eggs can be mixed in while keeping separation in check.

For batters containing milk, one method is to add the flour and liquid alternately. In the order of one-third of the flour, half of the liquid, flour, the remaining liquid, and the remaining flour, the batter is brought together without leaving dry lumps of flour. In the separated-egg method, the yolks are added to the butter and sugar, only the whites are whipped until they form stiff peaks, and, once the flour and liquid have been mixed in, the whites are folded in last so as not to deflate the foam. Unlike the method of mixing in whole eggs little by little, this method incorporates air by adding the whipped whites at the end.

The flour-batter method: mixing in the flour first

Butter cakes can also be made by the flour-batter method, in which flour is first mixed into softened butter and a mixture of sugar and eggs is then added. Compared with the sugar-batter method, in which butter and sugar are mixed first, it is less prone to separation and makes it easier to produce a fine-textured, dense crumb.

Shaping the crack and finishing with syrup and glaze

Cakes baked in long, narrow tins have a technique for making a crack down the center. If a thin line of butter is piped down the center of the batter before baking, the surface there tends to stay soft, so when the batter inside rises, it is more likely to split in the center. For citrus cakes, there is also a finish in which the baked cake is soaked with a syrup containing liquor and then layered with apricot jam and a lemon glaze.

Choosing a tin and finishing with sugar syrup

Besides long, narrow loaf tins, pound cake is also baked in pans with a central tube and in ring molds. Because it is baked as one large mass, it is finished while watching the color of the surface and how well the center is baked. If the top browns too quickly, it is covered with aluminum foil toward the end of baking, and a skewer inserted in the center is checked to make sure no raw batter clings to it.

For a vanilla-flavored cake made with cream cheese, there is a finish in which a syrup of sugar, water and vanilla is brushed onto the surface partway through baking and the cake is then baked further. This creates a thin, crisp layer of sugar on the outside while keeping the fine-textured crumb inside.

Once removed from the tin, the cake is wrapped after it has cooled completely. Letting it rest overnight or for a day or two so that the flavor and texture settle is also part of enjoying pound cake. Cutting thick slices, toasting them lightly and serving them with fruit or ice cream lets you enjoy the toasty surface and the soft interior together.

The equal-proportion formula behind the name, and 18th- and 19th-century methods

One pound is about 454 grams. Using one pound each of four ingredients adds up to about 1.8 kilograms of main ingredients alone before baking. The name itself reflects the cake’s character as a home-baked cake, baked large, cut into portions and eaten over several days.

The recipe (recette: the proportions of ingredients and the method) in Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747) conveys the work of mixing the batter by hand. The butter is put into an earthenware bowl and worked by hand until it becomes like a thick cream; the eggs, flour and sugar are then combined and beaten for another hour. Food historian Linda Civitello also takes up this instruction in discussing the labor that cake-making required before leavening agents became widespread. Behind the easy-to-remember “a pound of each” lay the handwork of continually working air into the batter.

Amelia Simmons’s American Cookery, published in the United States in 1796, already includes two pound cakes. One uses a pound each of the four ingredients and adds rose water and spices. The other reduces the butter and increases the flour, whips the egg whites before combining them with the yolks, and also adds brandy. Even under the same name, the proportions and the way air was incorporated varied.

Nineteenth-century American cookbooks show methods that add citrus juice, whip the egg whites separately, or add leavening agents such as baking soda. Today, some cakes are still made mainly from the four ingredients and leavened by air and the power of the eggs, while soft cakes made with milk, baking powder or cream cheese are also made. Quatre-quarts also lives on as a Breton cake.

Changing the flour and layering fruit and aromas

The 1832 edition of Eliza Leslie’s Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes and Sweetmeats includes an “Indian Pound Cake.” The Indian meal used here is cornmeal. The recipe uses 1 pint of cornmeal with 0.5 pint of wheat flour, 0.5 pound of butter and 8 eggs, combined with nutmeg, cinnamon, wine and brandy. The name pound cake was used even without setting all four ingredients at one pound. To make the batter, the butter and sugar are creamed, and the lightly beaten eggs and the flour are added alternately. A name derived from an equal-proportion formula using wheat flour was also applied to a batter containing cornmeal.

In the French-speaking Caribbean, too, quatre-quarts is one of the cakes handed down in families. Guadeloupe-born food writer Suzy Palatin names quatre-quarts and rolled cake as the first sweets she was allowed to make in the home of her mother, Hélène. Later, she kept the equal amounts of sugar and butter, reduced the flour, and reworked the cake into her own soft chocolate cake.

In a pineapple cake presented as Martinican home cooking, a lightened quatre-quarts batter is combined with cane sugar, aged rum, lime zest, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla. Caramel and fruit are arranged in the tin, the batter is poured over them and baked, and the cake is turned out so that the fruit is on top. Some cakes made with fruit instead mix chopped fruit or purée into the batter. This pineapple cake makes use of local ingredients, for example by showing the fruit on the surface and scenting the batter with rum.

Mexican panqué and Colombian celebration ponqué

In Mexico, the cake is also popular under the name panqué. The lineup of the local manufacturer Bimbo also includes versions with raisins, with walnuts and with a marble pattern; although the flavors and patterns differ, they share the feature of being baked long and narrow and then sliced.

In Colombia, ponqué also includes rich cakes made for celebrations. Traditional wedding ponqué may be made with walnuts, almonds, raisins and prunes, soaked with wine and brandy, and covered with fondant or similar coverings. A 2016 official specification for wedding cakes also describes this kind of preparation. Proportions vary from household to household, but celebration cakes made with liquor and fruit are also made under the same name, ponqué, as everyday cakes.

German stirred batters and formulas based on the weight of the eggs

German Rührteig is also a batter made in a way close to pound cake: the butter is beaten, and sugar, eggs and flour containing a leavening agent are added in turn. Rührteig is a broad term meaning “stirred batter,” and it does not refer only to the use of four ingredients in equal amounts.

Eischwerteig, on the other hand, is a name for batters whose quantities are determined based on the weight of the eggs. The German cookbook Backen! Das Goldene von GU introduces the equal-proportion idea of combining 250 grams each of butter, sugar and flour with 250 grams of eggs. An everyday recipe on the same page uses 300 grams of flour and adds milk if needed. Even within the same type of stirred batter, there are basic formulas with equal weights of the main ingredients and formulas that adjust the amounts of flour and liquid.

Eating quatre-quarts soaked in egg and milk and cooked again

In Brittany, quatre-quarts, made with equal amounts of four ingredients, is also eaten in combination with flavors typical of the region. The local manufacturer Ker Cadélac presents “quatre-quarts perdu,” in which slices are soaked in egg, milk and sugar, cooked in a frying pan, and served with a caramel sauce made with salted butter and cream. In this recipe, the salted butter is an ingredient of the sauce. It is a way of enjoying a cake made with equal amounts of four ingredients by adding the caramel popular in the region and cooking it once more.

Glossary

Parade's[X’mas 2023] Rum-Scented Brown Sugar Ginger Pound Cake / Gâteau gingembre sucre brun et rhum

The 2023 Christmas-limited “Rum-Scented Brown Sugar Ginger Pound Cake” from Cafe & Sweets Parade Kyoto, a pastry shop in Fushimi-Momoyama, Kyoto.

A gluten-free pound cake made only with Japanese rice flour and laced with rum.
We layered the moist cake with richly flavored kokuto (brown sugar) and the zesty kick of grated ginger to create a flavor for grown-ups.

The rich aroma of rum unfolds, and each bite leaves a deep, lingering finish.
It stays moist even when chilled. Cut it to the thickness you like and enjoy it a little at a time.

It pairs well not only with coffee and tea but also with drinks such as wine and whisky.
Enjoy it at gatherings with family or friends as a grown-up Christmas cake to brighten the holy night.

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