Let them eat pound cake

Nothing’s simpler than making a pound cake. No really, nothing.

The name gives it all away: a pound each of flour, butter, sugar and eggs. Plus, there is no special technique or equipment required. At the end of a rather impatient hour in front of the oven, and several pokes into the centre of the cake to test whether it’s done, a golden-brown loaf cake with a pleasant crust and tight crumb awaits you.

With the recipe that follows, I’ve been a little more liberal than the old school method of making the pound cake (without any added flavouring or leavening agents other than the air that’s whipped into the eggs). I flavoured the cake with sweet-smelling vanilla and I also added a little baking powder to give it a lighter, airier texture.

This was one of the first things I had ever baked. And it’s something I bake when all I crave is a thick slice of buttery cake, to be had plain or slathered with some thick raspberry preserve. If you’d like to take it up a notch: cut a thick slice of pound cake, smear some chocolate hazelnut spread, place some sliced bananas on it, before finally topping it with another slice of cake.

There couldn’t be a more decadent breakfast sandwich.
When you’ve become comfortable with the basic recipe, you can start tweaking it to suit your whims. Play around with flavours like lime zest, orange zest, chocolate chip, pieces of candied ginger, swirls of Nutella — let your imagination really take over. Here’s a tip: Whenever you use citrus zest, rub the sugar and the zest together with your fingers. The heat from your fingers will help release the aromatic oils from the zest and the sugar will absorb all that flavour. You can then go about making the cake just as you were.

Pound cake pointers:

• If you’re using a dark pan, your cake will bake faster, because of the extra heat the pan absorbs. In this case you should start checking to see if the cake is done, 10 minutes prior to the time mentioned in the recipe.
• Cover the cake pan with foil if you find that the cake’s browning too fast.
• Pound cakes actually taste better a day after they’re made. However, do not wrap it when it’s still warm. It will get soggy from the trapped stream.
• Store the cake at room temperature (and not in the refrigerator), wrapped in cling-film.
• Slice the cake just when you’re about to eat it. Slicing the cake much before time will strip it of its moisture.

Pound Cake recipe
Yield: 1 large loaf
Ingredients
240g (2 cups) all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
225g butter
200g (1 cup) caster sugar
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preparation
_ Preheat oven to 175°C. Butter and flour a 9×5 inch loaf pan.
_ Sift the flour and baking powder together. Set aside.
_ In a bowl, beat together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
_ Add the eggs 1 at a time, beating for a couple of minutes in between additions. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat in the vanilla extract.
_ Fold in the dry ingredients with a spatula till all the flour is incorporated.
_ Pour the batter in the loaf pan.
_ Bake the cake for 40-60 minutes or until a wooden skewer, or a butter knife comes out clean.
_ Once baked, let the cake rest for about 15 minutes before you remove it from the pan and transfer it to a cooling rack.
_ Slice it. Eat it.