Grab a cup of tea and pull up a chair – this is a loooong post!
I’ve discovered a cake baking secret (thanks Gill!).
It’s not really a secret at all, but it’s new to me, and understanding it has provided me with the necessary formula to create a wide range of exciting cake recipes.
Invented in Britain in the 1700s, pound cakes were based on a gloriously symmetrical recipe:
- a pound of butter
- a pound of sugar
- a pound of self-raising flour
- a pound of eggs
Converting this to manageable proportions (in this case, halving the quantities) gives us:
- 8oz (250g) butter
- 8oz (250g) sugar
- 8oz (250g) SR flour
- 4 large (59g) eggs
These cakes seem to mix up particularly well in the food processor.
If you don’t have self-raising flour, substitute 250g (8oz) plain (AP) flour whisked with three (3) teaspoons of baking powder.
Basic instructions :
1. Have all the ingredients at room temperature before starting. Preheat the oven to 160C (320F) with fan. Grease and line a 20cm (8″) round springform tin.
2. In the large bowl of the food processor, pulse together the butter and sugar until well combined and light in colour. Scrape down the bowl.
3. Add the eggs one at a time and continue pulsing to combine. Add a spoonful of the flour each time (if required) to stop the batter from curdling. Then add the remaining flour, pulsing until just combined (do not overmix).
4. Scrape the batter into the lined tin and bake for about an hour (start checking at the 50 minute mark), until a cake tester inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out cleanly. Baking time will vary if a different shaped tin is used. Allow to rest in the tin for 10 minutes before releasing the springform and transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
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Now this is where it gets fun!
Providing the proportions are kept roughly the same, the ingredients can be varied. It’s a little bit like cake baking by numbers! Some of the successful substitutions I’ve tried so far are as follows…
- Butter: the white chocolate cake I made below used 185g (6oz) unsalted butter and 65g (2oz) melted white chocolate in place of the 250g (8oz) butter. I’ve also tried substituting half the butter with a neutral vegetable oil, and it worked acceptably well.
- Sugar: I’ve made a chocolate pound cake with a mix of white and brown sugar. I’ve also used castor (superfine) sugar in several of the cakes below.
- SR flour: In the chocolate and hazelnut cake, I substituted Dutch-process cocoa powder and hazelnut (or almond) meal for half of the total flour weight.
- Additional flavourings: I almost always add a little homemade vanilla extract, and I’ve added citrus rind to the lime and almond cake below.
- Baking tins: I’ve baked these cakes in a 20cm (8″) round springform tin, a cast aluminium bundt pan and 22cm (8½”) loaf tin. The round and bundt pans worked well in all instances. The loaf tin was fine for our chocolate and hazelnut cake, but I had less success with the lime and almond cake in it – the centre of the cake collapsed as it baked.
- Scaling: I haven’t tried making a smaller cake yet, but I’ve read that the recipe can be easily scaled, providing we keep to the ratio of one large egg to 2oz (roughly 60g) of each of the other ingredients.
These changes will naturally alter the flavour and texture of the finished cake, which means every new combination will result in a unique creation.
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Here are a few of my recent attempts…
Lime and Almond Cake
- 250g (8oz) unsalted butter
- 250g (8oz) castor (superfine) sugar
- 175g (5½ oz) self-raising flour
- 75 (2½ oz) blanched almond meal
- 1 teaspoon homemade vanilla extract
- 4 large (59g) free range eggs
- 2 teaspoons grated lime rind
- lime icing (made from icing sugar mixture and lime juice)
This one is Pete’s favourite! The almond meal gives the finished cake a moist texture which contrasts well with the sharp, acidic icing.
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White Chocolate Pound Cake I
- 185g (6oz) unsalted butter
- 65g (2oz) white chocolate, melted
- 250g (8oz) white sugar
- 250g (8oz) self-raising flour
- 1 teaspoon homemade vanilla extract
- 4 large (59g) free range eggs
- extra white chocolate chips
- tempered white and milk chocolate, for decorating
I ladled half the batter into the lined 20cm (8″) springform tin, scattered over the extra white choc chips, then poured over the remaining batter. The finished cake had a slightly airier crumb than the lime cake, with a pronounced white chocolate flavour. Melted milk and white chocolate was drizzled over the top in a criss-cross pattern.
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White Chocolate Pound Cake II
This version was made to use up the leftover chocolate from our Easter tempering…
- 185g (6oz) unsalted butter
- 65g (2oz) white chocolate, melted
- 175g (5½ oz) castor sugar
- 75g (2½ oz) light Muscovado sugar
- 250g (8oz) self-raising flour
- 1 teaspoon homemade vanilla extract
- 4 large (59g) free range eggs
- 125g (4oz) assorted chocolate bits
The batter was ladled into a greased bundt tin in three layers, with a scattering of chocolate bits between each layer. It took just 45 minutes in a 160C (320F) fan-forced oven – the shorter baking time was probably due to the dark coating and central tube of the cast aluminium bundt tin. The gaps in the crumb are where the white chocolate bits have melted into the cake…
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Blueberry Pound Cake
- 125g (4oz) unsalted butter
- 125g (4oz) vegetable oil
- 250g (8oz) castor (superfine) sugar
- 250g (8oz) plain (AP) flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon homemade vanilla extract
- 4 large (59g) free range eggs
- 125g (4oz) fresh or defrosted frozen blueberries
- Light Muscovado sugar, for scattering on top before baking
This cake was purely experimental – I wanted to see if I could replace part of the butter with oil, and also to see if plain flour plus a raising agent was a suitable alternative for the SR flour.
Both substitutions worked well, although the batter was far wetter than usual (due to the oil) and the blueberries (which were scattered on top prior to baking) sank as the cake rose. Having said that, I’m quite happy that they didn’t all sink to the bottom.
I think I prefer these cakes made with butter, as the flavour of the oil came across a bit too strongly in this one. However, the fact that it worked so well with all the substitutions attests to the versatility of the recipe!
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Now, please don’t write and tell me that my metric to imperial conversions are out – I’m aware of that, but the proportions are the same in each case, and it’s much easier to work in round numbers.
There are oodles of possible variations on this basic cake recipe! Fresh or dried fruit could be added, flavourings might include coffee, liqueurs or spices, or the basic cake could be split in half and sandwiched with cream and jam.
Play around with a combination of flavours that you like, and you’ll end up with a cake recipe that is uniquely yours. And if you do, please share – we’d love to see what you come up with!
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Related Post: Food Processor Chocolate and Hazelnut Cake
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Celia, this post goes to my top list of favorites of all times…. you know how I feel about baking cakes, and the usual nightmare I go through at each baking adventure
You make it sound so easy, I want to make a cake using your formula and see how it goes. I really like the idea of using fruit in the batter, good to know it doesn’t mess the proportions
I am definitely going to play with this and will let you know how it goes…
Wonderful post all around!
Thanks Sally! It took ages to write, so I’m really chuffed that you like it! The cakes work particularly well in the bundt tins if you have one – I think they cook more evenly in the middle with the central tube. I’d love to know what you come up with! :)
Celia, I am learning so much from you! Why don’t you consider turning your passion into a business?
That’s kind of you, thank you, but I’ve learnt through experience that often the quickest way to kill a passion is to turn it into a business.. ;-)
Celia.. My daughter just sat down and read this with me (after I showed her your one giant hot cross bun)… and she (and I) think you’re amazing! Now I know why it’s called a pound cake. The one I made was so far from these measurements that I don’t think it should have properly been called a “pound” cake. I love your simplicity and that this cake can turn into different variations! And.. I think I could memorize it, which is just awesome!xo
Smidge, thank you! I love that I’ve memorised the proportions too – I don’t look anything up now, just weigh ingredients and throw them into the food processor! Having a set of scales makes this easy – I think using cup measures in this instance would be confusing.
Isn’t it great when you find such a versatile recipe? You can produce something different every time, but have the confidence that your recipe won’t fail! All your variations sound delicious and look as good as always.
I had a similar recipe when I baked with butter and have found a light sponge recipe for when I bake with oil, but I still need an oil based recipe which will take the weight of fruit or large chocolate chips – one day I will find it!
Thanks Suelle! Have a look at Joanna’s comment below – she suggests that Clotilde’s zucchini and chocolate cake might work for you?
Thanks, Joanna for the suggestion – it’s certainly a cake to try, but I wouldn’t want a ‘classic base’ cake recipe to have vegetables in it everytime.
Great !! This not just a pound cake…Its a healthy one.
Thank you! Not sure how healthy it is, although I guess it’s completely preservative free! :)
Lovely cakes darling! How nice to be able to throw the cookbooks away and work on developing one’s own recipes. I might have a go at the lime and almond one when I have recovered from eating pie ;)
btw I read a blog by Marmaduke Scarlet in which she talked about weighing ones eggs and matching the weight of the eggs to the other ingredients- a variation on the pound cake theme which gets round the egg size problem very neatly. Here is a recent post of hers in case you are interested http://marmadukescarlet.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/not-quite-simnel-cake.html
I was going to say to Suelle Clotilde’s chocolate and zucchini cake uses oil and takes a lot of chocolate weight, I wonder if she could adapt that one successfully?
Jo, I think you might like the lime and almond one – Pete loves it and I’ve now made it twice for him. Our eggs usually come in at about 240g (they’re roughly 60g each), which brings it close to the 250g I’m using as a base. Mind you, if I was using ounces as the recipe was traditionally written, it would be closer still, but then what would I do with that little leftover sliver of butter? :) (Our butter comes in 250g blocks here in Australia – is it the same in the UK?)
We can get small, medium, large, extra large, double yolkers and Mixed boxes sometimes. i think a large egg here is sbout 60g like yours. The butter is metric now, as is the milk and most prepacked foodstuffs.
I was thinking some more about your original comment, and weighing eggs would definitely be a good idea, particularly if using odd sizes, or duck eggs like our friend Choclette often does! I’ve never seen double yolkers for sale – how fun! :) xx
They all look delightful. I think this is pretty much what I do when I want to come up with a new variation on a theme. I often use 175g butter/sugar/self raising flour and 3 eggs and then tweak from there. Different sugars, a proportion of cocoa powder, I haven’t messed much with the butter element yet, but have an experiment in the oven as I type! It’s great to be able to adapt a favourite and provide cake for all occasions!
Caroline, thank you – it’s great to know it works so well in the scaled down format. The joy of this recipe really has been that it’s let me be creative – I’ve had enormous fun playing (my poor neighbours are completely stuffed with cake.. ;-)).
What a beautiful collection of cakes. If I lived in your house I would look like a blimp.
Norma, thank you – we have wide doorways, so it’s not a problem. I’m starting to need them too! :)
Oh WOW! I can’t wait to try that blueberry cake with our fake sugar. I’ll make it toward the end of the month, and then report back (if you’re interested in how it reacts with stevia). :) Thanks!!
Misk, I wonder how it will work with stevia – will you have to adjust the weight of the sugar? Good luck!
I will try it at half weight sugar and stevia. That will reduce the sugar by a quarter, and the total sweetness by 3/4 as stevia is double the sweetness of sugar. I will have Peder double-check my maths before I start wasting eggs and flour though. :)
Maybe try with a scaled down version first, Misk? Look forward to seeing how it goes! :)
Love this post! I love reading about baking by proportions, although I’m not usually brave enough to modify things on my own. :) It’s inspiring to read about all of your successful variations. I did just make a mini pound cake yesterday (a regular recipe for a lemon cake, which I divided between three mini pans). Yum!
Abby, thank you – I hope you give it a go, as I said, it really is a bit like baking by numbers! Lemon pound cake sounds fabulous! :)
What a great time you have had with your new food processor, that is one appliance that won’t sit unloved in a cupboard. Love the history on the pound cake, I didn’t know that. Such an informative post, Celia. Thanks so much!
Lizzy, I’m having a ball with it! It comes out every morning and sits on the bench until the end of the day. I’m about to make French onion soup again, so it will be given another workout soon.. :)
Now this is the kind of pound cake I’ve been trying to make (i call it a sponge) but i just cant get it as fluffy looking as yours!
That’s interesting! Over here in Australia, this kind of cake is known as a “butter cake”, but a sponge is quite different, and far lighter! Our sponges often have cornflour and occasionaly hot water in them!
Here are the lamingtons we made, from an old Women’s Weekly recipe:
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2011/01/29/lamingtons/
Thank you for all the work Celia. This is very useful information for everyone. I have made pound cakes before but never in the food processor. Go neighbours…. when I had tons of cheese to give away every week my neighbours used to just say NO…No more!
http://www.mykitchenstories.com.au
Hehehe…Tania, our neighbours almost got to that point! I wish I lived near you – tons of cheese? Woohoo… :)
Oh to be your neighbour! I would know exactly when to pop in because I’d be able to smell the minute your pound cakes emerged from the oven. What a lot of baking! Your pound cake with the icing dribbling down the sides is amazing. What a perfectly leveled top! The pound cake is something our previous generation knew how to whip up without ever referring to a recipe! Great to see its revival xx
Charlie, thank you! It was a lot of baking, but I was so excited with experimenting that I didn’t want to stop. I can see now why the previous generation could make cakes without thinking – they knew the math! I wonder if things became more complicated when we moved from scales to cup measures (and then back again, as is the case here in Oz).
PS. My neighbours know when to come around, because I send out a group email…hahaha…
lol – half pound cake :)
Ha! Yes, half pound cakes…maybe I need to change the title.. ;-)
your cakes all look beautiful celia..i think a slice of the lime and almond one would go really well with my pot tea this morning..
Jane, thank you! The lime one is Pete’s and my neighbour Ellen’s favourite as well! The icing is important – or so Pete keeps telling me.. :)
Brilliant job! Thanks for sharing. I will have to try this out in my thermomix. Always looking for new cakes i can whip up in it :-)
Thanks Amber! Hope it works well for you!
Celia – you clever-clogs – I think you’ve just invented cake baking for dummies!
And they all look simply divine.
Thanks Amanda, and wouldn’t that be nice? Unfortunately someone far cleverer me invented it over 200 years ago! :)
I feel the need to rhyme round (as in up) with pound and I got nothing. This is a wonderful post. Love it!
Thanks Greg! :)
This is an impressive range of cakes Celia…the lime and almond is one I might try as my lime tree is loaded with fruit!
Jane, how lovely to have a lime tree in the backyard! We planted lemon instead (Pete wouldn’t let me have both), but I’m now wondering if we made the right decision!
Guess what I’m making next weekend? ;) I think the white chocolate pound cake would be especially popular in our household.
~S.
Sorcha, do you have a bundt tin? It seems to work particularly well in that…
Celia you’ve opened up a whole new world of cake baking. I have so many ideas! ps.. need to get a food processor but that’s just a little glitch in my plan
Claire, pound cakes have always been made by hand or using an electric mixer until recent times, although I’ve never tried this recipe in anything other than the food processor. I hope you’ve added a FP to the bridal registry! :)
The veil has been lifted from my eyes. I rarely experiment with cake baking ingredients….but not any more. Really excellent information – thank you.
Sally, thank you for saying that, because that’s exactly how I felt! I wonder if all the famous chefs have secret formulas that they just fiddle with from time to time to make new cakes! :)
This is such a great post Celia. I’ve never, ever been good at cakes. My first attempt at birthday cake for my eldest daughter when she was about 3 ended up looking like a volcano complete with yellow lava (I didn’t have pink food colouring for the icing) and one of the little guests asked her Mama “mummy, do I have to eat that”! But for her 18th I made a lime cake which I thought wasn’t half bad, but my mother-in-law said “hmm, the icing saves it doesn’t it”! However — I reckon — with this post up my sleeve, I can turn out a lime and almond meal cake – I adore that combination. Thank you for the many pounds-worth of confidence Celia.
Aah mother-in-laws, they certainly know the right thing to say, don’t they? ;-) I hope this cake works for you, Jan, I’ve now made the lime and almond one three times, and apart from the time I tried it in the loaf tin, it’s been great (the mixture was too thick in the loaf tin and collapsed in the middle – best to stick to the 20cm round tin). Have fun! :)
A pound cake per se seems a bit boring but you have put your usual spin on it and made it more exotic, thanks for the conversion for a smaller qty.
Thanks Roz. I’m yet to make a plain pound cake – the variations are too much fun! :)
Pineapple Upside Down Cake! Or any fruit, really. Or tomatoes.
Cosmo, tomatoes are an interesting idea.. :)
I’ve sampled his tomato upside down cake – well worth the time!
Great, great post Celia! All those cakes – I would like a slice of each one. Oh to live in your street.
Anna, your family have been helping me eat them – thankfully! :) Wish you lived here too.. x
Growing up in the southern USA, pound cake was a typical treat for us! We’d have plain pound cake (baked in a loaf tin, so the slices came out kind of square) with whipped cream (store bought from a tub) and great handfuls of fresh strawberries or blackberries from the garden. Strawberry shortcake!
SK, so that’s the original strawberry shortcake! Thanks for letting me know!
How do you stay so slim!
:-) Mandy
Mandy, don’t judge by the avatar photo – it’s years old! :)
I have just learnt that my made up recipe is a pound cake recipe! Basically the same principles but I add a bit of milk to lighten the consistency :) Thanks for this informative post!
Tandy, my friend Gill who makes this told me that she often adds a little liquid if the mix is looking too thick. She says it’s a very forgiving recipe! :)
Celia, I know that it must have taken a lot of your time to document and write this post but it is so thorough. You have taken the guess work out of making pound cakes and given us a wonderful tutorial.
Karen, thank you for saying that – I wanted this post to be just right, so I had to really test the recipe out properly first! :)
I love the texture of pound cakes (and I have a secret crush on the Sara Lee sultana pound cake but don’t tell anyone ok? ;) ). Have you tried the 1234 butter cake? It has 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour and 4 eggs! :P
That’s a lot of sugar! :) Equates to 250g butter, 440g sugar, 300g flour and 240g eggs. How does it turn out?
I think I have to try this recipe, better still….can I come and live at your house?
Sure you can Sue, cake’s on the table and the kettle’s on.. :)
This cake is like a little black dress, always right, for any occassion and you can dress it up or down! Perfect.. and I love anything with ingredients that i can memorise! thank you for the food processor tip too tho i think mine is too small! c
Celi, it will scale down easily enough I think – try 6oz each of the flour, butter and sugar plus 3 eggs and bake it in a smaller tin! :)
Or make it in the mixer (although I’m yet to try that!).. ;-)
Oooh, this recipe came up at a perfect moment for me, as my daughter’s birthday was today and I needed something easy to put together after a busy day. Tried the first white choc variation and added a handful of frozen raspberries to the middle of the cake, and it was delish! I think this might become one of my go-to recipes, thank you! (and I have my eye on trying the lime and almond one sometime too)
I am SO happy to hear that! Thank you so much for letting me know! :)
I taught this recipe to my daughter back when I was teaching her to count :) It’s just such a great one to have commited to memory as (as you showed) it has so many fantastic variations. Yours all look and sound so nice, but the budnt cake is so pretty!
Becca, I’m having great fun with it. It’s nice to have something that’s so easy to remember and works every time – the cakes seem to keep very well too!
So many variations and all as gorgeous as the next :)
Thanks Nic! :)
Oh wow, these cakes look gorgeous!
Thanks Becky!
Hi Celia. My first time commenting, but I’ve visited a couple of times. This definitely was a great post and I’ve always wondered why the pound in Pound Cake! :) Now I know, thanks. So simple really.
and thanks for confirming that it’s ok to change things around in recipes, & even though I’ve been doing that for quite a while, they didn’t always work out quite right. I love all those great substitutions for ingredients. I’ll be able to refer to this post from now on.
All those cakes of yours look amazing!
Pam, thanks for stopping by! Hope you have fun with this recipe – I still am! :)
Always there when I need you……Recently, I enjoyed pound cake success and suffered a pound cake disaster – all within a week. The sucessful recipe was made with homemade butter from pasteurised cream and was WONDERFUL – moist et al. The disaster was made with regular cake ingredients but ended up SO DRY it was a pain to eat it!
So I’ll be trying these out – especially the variations – thank you.
Thanks Oz! Hope they work out well for you!
You’ve made some lovely looking cakes there Celia. The lime and almond looks mighty fine and I really like the zestiness of lime. Pound cakes are what we Baking Brits grew up on. Use your quantities and split the sponge and you have a classic Victoria sponge, half the quantities again and you pretty much have a standard cupcake mixture. Since reading Dan’s idea for substituting white chocolate for lard, like you, I’ve been playing around with substituting it for some of the butter in cakes – it seems to work really well.
Choc, thank you! I was surprised how well the white chocolate worked in place of the butter, although it must be lower in fat, as the cake wasn’t quite as moist. I’ll try the recipe in cupcakes, thank you!
By the end of this year I hope to hear you are writing your own cook book, my friend….
Ah, you’re sweet, Norma, but I doubt that’s going to happen.. :)
Hi Celia,
This is such a great post. I made a mini version of this cake with just one egg and some cocoa instead of flour in a little 1L round pyrex dish and it worked beautifully! Given that there’s just the one of me it was a perfect size for a couple of afternoon teas.
Thanks!
Hannah, that’s fabulous, thanks for letting me know! Great that it works scaled down to just one egg! :)