Variations on a Pound Cake

I love to bake desserts especially cakes and cookies. During the winter holiday season they make great homemade gifts and elegant additions to a festive meal. I received a Poppy Seed Pound Cake one year as a gift which was delicious. So I thought it would be fun to make some old-fashioned pound cakes and started experimenting with recipes. Here’s what happened.

Pound Cakes

The traditional pound cake got its name because the ingredients were originally a pound each of shortening, flour, sugar and eggs or at least equal amounts of each ingredient. No leavening agents such as baking powder or soda were included in the recipe. The lift to the cake came from air beaten into the shortening and eggs. They also didn’t include any milk, cream or buttermilk in the recipe. The cakes were often baked in a loaf pan, Bundt cake pan or a spring-form pan at a low temperature for an hour or longer.

Lemon Almond Pound Cake

First I tried a lemon almond pound cake. It made a rather dense, dry cake, in my opinion, although my husband said it was delicious. Plus the recipe made a very large cake. (Many of these traditional recipes have 6 to 8 eggs.) The cake did have a very nice, fine texture–the best characteristic of this cake–and a pleasing almond and lemon flavor.

Pound cakes may be used in a Trifle, a dessert with custard or pudding layered with fruit and some syrup or liqueur infused over the cake. This pound cake would be delicious when served as a Trifle. It would also be great served with whipped cream or ice cream and fresh fruit.

Chocolate Espresso Sour Cream Pound Cake

The second cake recipe I tried was a Chocolate Espresso Sour Cream Pound Cake. I took the chocolate espresso idea from a pecan pie recipe adding Ghirardelli baking chocolate, instant espresso coffee granules and Kahlua Liqueur to the cake mix. To help the cake be less dry, I added sour cream to the batter.  Again it made a large, dense cake with a fine texture with an nice chocolate coffee flavor. I would serve this with whipped cream or ice cream.

Variations on a Pound Cake

Over the years other ingredients have been added to pound cake recipes making for a more flavorful and “lighter” cake. These are good additions, in my opinion. The final result and what matters is how the cake tastes–not the recipe.

These ingredients include leavening agents (baking powder and soda), cream, buttermilk, sour cream and oil. Often grated citrus peel–orange or lemon–and citrus juices are added along with extracts such as vanilla and almond extract. Many pound cakes have a sugar syrup poured over the hot cake to add moisture and sweetness.

All these things help make a rich, flavorful cake and some of the recipes don’t even look like a pound cake recipe except for the fact that they are baked in a loaf pan. But it’s the cake–not the recipe–that matters.

Third Recipe Try – Lemon Poppy Seed Pound Cake

I’ve given up on making a “traditional” pound cake and I searched through my recipe stacks to find pound cakes I’d made several years ago for Christmas gifts for friends. Sure enough, these were all “variations” on a pound cake recipe. One was a Martha Stewart “Blueberry Belle” cake, another was a Martha Stewart “Lemon Thyme” cake and a third was an Epicurious “Orange Poppy Seed” pound cake. For the gifts, I baked these in individual loaf pans.

Here’s my adaptation of one of them, a Lemon Poppy Seed Pound Cake. It is very lemony and not overly sweet. Success!

Recipe