How to Make a Pound Cake

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Is there anything more gloriously rich and simple than a pound cake? I have a fondness in my heart for it because it’s the very first cake I learned, and the first cake anyone ever paid me to make.
People started calling the **pound cake** a pound cake because it called for a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a pound of flour, and a pound of eggs. Like many delicious things, the earliest version of pound cake came from Europe a few hundred years ago, but it’s been around the United States since, well, we became the United States. If you’re wondering why the French would call something a pound cake, they didn’t—the term was **quarte-quarts** or “four quarters.” In *American Cookery* (1796) we see two recipes for pound cake, one of which calls for “One pound sugar, one pound butter, one pound flour, one pound or ten eggs, rose water one gill, spices to your taste” and the other which calls for “three quarters of a pound butter, one pound of good sugar, ’till very white, whip ten whites to a foam, add the yolks and beat together, add one spoon rose water, 2 of brandy.”
Which pretty much sums up the quandary of the pound cake—even very early recipes for it had some variations and didn’t follow the exact “pound” rules! Some use milk, some use baking powder, some use more sugar or less sugar. The recipe I used growing up didn’t use exactly a pound of everything, and neither does the one in this gif.
1 pound butter, softened
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Step 1
Preheat oven to 300°. Beat butter at medium speed with a heavy-duty electric stand mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating 3 to 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until yellow disappears.
Step 2
Add flour to butter mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition. Stir in extracts. Pour into a lightly greased and floured 9-inch round cake pan.
Step 3
Bake at 300° for 60 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean (**Note: recipe says 60 minutes but it will likely take longer. Test at 60 but don’t worry if you need to give it another 10 to 20 minutes. DO NOT check it before the 60 minute mark, you’ll just mess up the baking process.**). Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 minutes. Remove from pan to wire rack; cool completely (about 1 hour).
**Notes**: always use room temperature butter and eggs, because you’ll get optimal volume and lift in your cake batter. And if you’re not keen on almond extract, I say just use double the vanilla!
Oh, and for food history fans out there, [link to *American Cookery* by Amelia Simmons], which is widely regarded as the “first American cookbook.”