Pound Cake

Variations

• An actual pound of each: 450g of all four, as the name says, makes twice this cake. Household recipes came down to 225g because that is what fits one loaf tin, not because the ratio changed. Holding the ratio and scaling freely is the point of the formula.
• Madeira cake: the English version with lemon zest and a strip of candied citron laid on top. It is named for the wine it was served with; there is no wine in the cake.
• Quatre-quarts: the French name, meaning "four quarters" — a quarter each of the four ingredients, so the same cake. In Brittany it is made with salted butter.
• Bundt cake: in the United States this batter is enriched with sour cream or cream cheese and baked in a patterned bundt tin. It bakes longer, so drop the oven about 10°C.
• Flavouring it: lemon zest, Earl Grey leaves, matcha, rum-soaked dried fruit and ground almonds are all common. Take dry additions out of the flour weight, and toss wet ones (dried fruit) in a little flour first or they sink to the bottom.
• How it differs from banana bread: the same loaf shape, the opposite method. Banana bread is the muffin method — melted butter, minimal mixing — and it rises on bicarbonate of soda. A pound cake beats air into solid butter and rises on that air alone.
• Other things built by creaming: it is the first step of chocolate chip cookies, and of the batters in Sachertorte, babka and the biscuit shell of soboro-ppang. Scones do the reverse and keep the butter cold, and brownies melt the butter outright — which is why that crumb never opens.
• What to eat it with: strawberries and cream, or griddled and served with ice cream. In England it is simply sliced alongside tea, and it can stand in for the meringue in Eton mess.

Tips

• Judge creaming by what it looks like, not by the clock. Eight minutes is a guide; the end is when the mixture has lost its butter-yellow for a pale cream and grown visibly. It is a physical process — sugar crystals scraping the butter and cutting air pockets into it — so under-creamed means exactly that many fewer pockets and a shorter cake.
• Which is why coarse sugar beats fine. Icing sugar has no crystals left to do the scraping. For this batter, granulated sugar is a tool (what sugar does).
• Butter outside 18-20°C nearly always fails. Cold, it will not take air; starting to melt, it lets go of the air it had. Softening it in the microwave is the worst of both (butter).
• Eggs one at a time, fully absorbed. Adding egg to creamed butter is emulsifying water into fat. All at once is more than it can take, it curdles, and a curdled batter has lost its air (emulsions and pan sauces, cooking eggs).
• If it does split, a spoonful of flour brings it back. The starch takes up the loose water. Far better than pressing on regardless.
• Flour goes in with a spatula only. Gluten makes the crumb tough and gives you a cake that domes and then sinks in the middle. Use a low-protein cake flour and sift it twice so there is nothing to have to beat out (choosing flour, dough and gluten, flour).
• The crack down the back is not a fault. The crust sets while the inside is still rising and pushes through it. Draw a trench down the middle beforehand and the split gathers there, straight.
• Low oven, long bake. At 190°C the outside burns while the middle is still raw and then falls. 170°C for an hour is the benchmark; drop to 160°C in a fierce oven (what your oven is doing).
• Do not open the door in the first thirty minutes. Cold air on a structure that has not set yet drops it. Look at it after the half hour, and cover it with foil then.
• The original has no baking powder. The eighteenth-century cake rose on creaming alone, which is why it is dense and close-grained. The teaspoon in modern recipes is insurance against the creaming going wrong. Neither is correct: with it the cake is lighter, without it it is the original thing.
• A thermometer beats a skewer. 96-98°C in the centre means done. A skewer pushed into the crack can miss an underdone seam, so aim for the thickest part of the middle.
• Leave it a day. Wrapped once completely cold, the butter re-sets and moisture evens out through the crumb. It is better on the second day than fresh, keeps three or four days at room temperature, and freezes for a month (freezing and thawing, reviving leftovers).
• Never serve it cold. Butter that is set solid will not melt on the tongue and half the flavour goes with it. Out of the fridge, give it thirty minutes (serving temperature).