Pound Cake

According to food historian Linda Stradley, the Pound Cake is a British creation that dates back to the early 1700s. Many women could not read in the 1700's and the equal amounts of ingredients, plus the name of the cake, made it easier to remember the recipe. This cake, like so many other century-old cakes, originated from yeast leavened bread-like cakes. The only raising agent used originally, however, was the air whipped into the batter.

A genuine Pound Cake must be rich, dense and not crumbly. It is important to beat the air into the batter correctly. Eggs should be at room temperature and each egg should be added separately to reduce the risk of the batter curdling. The butter too should be at room temperature to achieve the characteristic texture of a good Pound Cake. Creaming the softened butter with the sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy lets the air bubbles into the batter so the cake rises evenly. Properly creaming the butter results in a cake with a dense, rich and soft interior that is neither too hard nor too mushy. "The texture [of pound Cake] is spongy but not flaky. It is moist without having the uncooked pudding-like quality you get from those 'extra-moist' box jobs you get at the store. Nor it is puffy and dry as so many homemade cakes can be (a result of pulling back on essential ingredients)."

Food historians generally agree that the earliest recipes for Pound Cake appeared in 18th century English and American cookbooks. The earliest Pound Cake recipe (in print) appears to be a British one that dates back to 1747:
"To make a Pound Cake
Take a Pound of Butter, beat it in an earthen Pan, with your Hand one Way, till it is like a fine thick Cream; then have ready twelve Eggs, but hald the Whites, beat them well, and beat them up with the Butter, a Pound of Flour beat in it, and a Pound of Sugar, and a few Carraways; beat it all well together for an Hour with your Hand, or a great wooden Spoon. Butter a Pan, and put it in and bake it an Hour in a quick Oven. For Change, you may put in a Pound of Currants cleaned wash'd and pick'd."










The first cookbook written by an American and published in the United States in 1796 (Amelia Simmons' American Cookery: or, The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry and Vegetables, and the Best Modes of Making Puff-pastes, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards and Preserves, and all kinds of Cakes, from the Imperial Plumb to plain Cake) contains two Pound Cake recipes. Here is one:
POUND CAKE - One pound fugar, one pound butter, one pound flour, ten eggs, rofe water one gill, spices to our tafte; watch it well, it will bake in a flow oven in 15 minutes.




As early as the mid 1800's, deviations from the original Pound Cake recipe, aiming at making it a somewhat lighter cake, began to appear. Some recipes added a liquid (alcohol such as brandy or rose water, for example). But the most important change came in the 1900s, when artificial raising agents (baking powder or soda) were added to the recipe.

Most of us today use cups, not weight, to measure ingredients. Early American cookbooks printed in the 1920s often included both sets of measurement. If you are curious, these are the equivalents: A pound of butter is equal to four sticks of butter, a pound of sugar is equal to 2 cups, a pound of eggs is equal to between 6 and 10 eggs and a pound of flour is 3 cups.

Today's pound cakes use lesser proportions of the same ingredients, and sometimes even substitutes (margarine in place of butter, artificial sweeteners) to produce a lighter, healthier (though probably not tastier!) cake.

As explained above Pound Cake has been a popular cake in Britain and the US for over two centuries. A good pound cake depends on its rich buttery flavor and is excellent plain or with a dusting of powdered sugar. However, because it is such a plain cake, it works well with additions and variations. It is often flavored simply with vanilla and served with fresh fruit, whipped cream or ice cream.

In the United States, Pound Cake has traditionally been a popular dessert in the south. The first known cookbook written by an African-American was published in 1881 and is entitled, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking. Mrs. Fisher, who was a former slave, could not read or write and her friends wrote down her recipes. Her cookbook includes two Pound Cake recipes: a Gold Cake (made with egg yolks), and Silver Cake (using only egg whites).

Traditional British Pound Cake recipes always include dried fruits (usually currants or raisins) and often also a bit of glacé cherries, making English pound cake more of a fruit cake than its American counterpart - although the basic cake recipe is the same.

Among the most popular variations on the traditional plain Pound Cake both in the US and in Britain are chocolate pound cake, cream cheese pound cake, sour cream pound cake and, two old favorites, lemon pound cake and poppy seed pound cake.

Chocolate Pound Cake

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Sour Cream Pound Cake

Lemon Pound Cake

The recipe below is for "Plain Pound or Currant Cake" featured in a British cookbook first printed in 1845.

Mix, as directed in the foregoing receipt, ten eggs (some cooks take a pound in weight of these), one pound of sugar, one of flour, and as much of butter. For a plum-cake, let the butter be worked to a cream; add the sugar to it first, then the yolks of the eggs, next stir lightly in the whites, after which, add one pound of currants and the candied peel, and, last of all, the flour by degrees, and a glass of brandy when it is liked. Nearly or quite two hours'baking will be required for this, and one hour for half the quantity. To convert the above into the popular speckled bread,' or Brawn Brack of the richer kind, add to it three ounces of carraway-seeds: these are sometimes used in combination with the currants, but more commonly without.












Pound Cake in the US is often served with a simple lemon or other flavor icing, and today there are recipes for such varieties as Brown Sugar Pound Cake and Apple Cider Pound Cake.

Pound Cake, however, is not only a British / US cake. In France, the name used for this kind of cake is quatre-quarts, meaning 'four-fourths' (referring to the equal parts of the four ingredients, flour, sugar, eggs and butter). Quatre-quarts is a traditional and popular cake in France, especially in the region of Brittany. Traditionally, fruit is not added, but some variants add chocolate or lemon juice for flavor. Germany's Sandtorte, or Sandkuchen, are also very similar to Pound Cake. A Mexican cake, panqué, is also similar to Pound Cake and common variations are panqué cons nueces (pound cake with walnuts) and panqué con pasas (pound cake with raisins). In Spain Queque seco ("dry cake") is the same as Pound Cake.

In conclusion, Pound Cake may not be a fancy cake, but it is a sublimely satisfying and versatile one - and it is not difficult to make. The secret, I believe, is to respect the original ingredients and their proportions.