Perfect Pound Cake
Ingredients
- 2 cups cake flour
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- salt
There are a few tricks to making perfect pound cake. For starters, you want to have all your ingredients at room temperature; cold ingredients do not blend evenly. You also want to use good unsalted butter with a high butterfat content. I prefer cultured butter (like Echiré or Plugrá), which imparts a delicate complexity of flavor.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Butter a 9 × 5 loaf pan.
Beat the butter at high speed in a stand mixer until it’s fluffy and starting to turn white; it is not possible to overdo this step, which should take at least 5 minutes.
Slowly add the sugar, a bit at a time, and keep beating, scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula whenever it seems necessary.
Add 1 large egg and beat for a couple of minutes. Your eggs are your major leavening, so you want to take your time here, incorporating as much air as possible.
Add another egg, beat it in, and then another and another, until 4 eggs have become one with the butter.
Add the vanilla and mix again.
In a separate bowl whisk together the cake flour, the baking powder, and a pinch of salt.
Remove the bowl from the mixer and gently fold in the flour by hand. Stop as soon as the flour is incorporated into the butter and egg mixture; at this point, you don’t want to overmix.
Turn the mixture into the buttered loaf pan and smooth the top.
Bake for about an hour, until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let it rest on a rack for 10 minutes before turning out of the pan.
Allow the cake to cool completely on the rack before serving
