Oh blessed pound cake recipe, is there no end to your possibilities?
Here’s my latest attempt, a caramel cake with browned butter frosting. I baked it in a Wilton bundt pan, but given that the frosting was quite stiff and the batter reasonably sticky, it probably would have worked better in a 20cm (8″) springform pan.
Cake batter:
- 250g (8oz) unsalted butter
- 250g (8oz) dark brown sugar
- 175g (5½oz) self raising flour
- 75g (2½oz) blanched almond meal
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used homemade)
- 4 large (59g) free range eggs
Icing:
- 100g (3½oz) unsalted butter
- 150g (5¼oz) icing sugar mixture (confectioner’s sugar)
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Please have a look at our original food processor pound cake post here.
1. Have all the ingredients at room temperature before starting. Preheat the oven to 160C (320F) with fan. Spray a 10-cup bundt pan was oil, or grease and line a 20cm (8″) round springform tin.
2. Using a coarse sieve, sift together the almond meal and flour.
3. 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.
4. Add the vanilla extract, followed by the eggs one at a time. Continue pulsing to combine. Add a spoonful of the flour mixture each time (if required) to stop the batter from curdling. Then add the remaining flour and almond meal, pulsing until just combined (do not overmix).
5. Scrape the batter into the prepared tin. If using the bundt pan, bake for about 50 minutes; the springform tin will probably take about an hour (start checking at the 50 minute mark). The cake is cooked when it has shrunken in from the sides slightly, and a cake tester inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out cleanly. Allow to rest in the tin for 10 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Icing: In a medium sized saucepan, melt the butter over a medium heat until it browns – be careful not to burn it. Allow to cool. Sift the icing sugar mixture, then gradually whisk it into the butter to form a thick frosting. Whisk in the vanilla extract. Add more icing sugar if needed. Spread the frosting over the cake and allow to set before serving.
I wanted to take a pretty picture of the whole cake for you, but this is what it looked like when I got up the next morning…
And here’s a close-up of the frosting – I love the specks of browned butter in it!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Almond and vanilia… how much I love them… Wonderful recipe. Thank you dear Celia, with my love, nia
Thanks Nia! It was particularly popular with the neighbours! :)
Caramel and cake in the same sentence? Delicious!
Emily, my Pete would agree with you! :)
Browned butter frosting sounds amazing!
Jen, the frosting was the best bit! There was a battle over the leftovers in the bowl.. ;-)
Great flavours together. I must get into this brown butter thing.
Sally, I’d never tried browned butter in something sweet before – we usually only do it when we’re making sage sauce for pasta..
The photo with a wedge missing allows one to see how moist the cake is, a whole cake would not convey that message. That frosting looks sinfully delicious.
Norma, I must admit that wasn’t the first thing I thought when I got up in the morning and found a huge slab of the cake missing. ;-)
Divine, i use pound cake a lot too as a base. This one is a great variation! c
Celi, it’s wonderful how flexible the recipe is! I’ve been throwing in all sorts of things.. ;-)
This is such a dense crumby and deliciously flavoured cake :D
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Thank you! It was very moist…
Mmm! I want this cake.
I’m making it! :)
Thanks Celia!
Heidi, I hope the tribe enjoy it! It’s very simple to make, and I find myself putting almond meal into almost all the pound cakes these days – I love the moistness it adds to the crumb…
Hee hee, I suppose you should know better than to leave cake unattended overnight! It looks no less beautiful or enticing for not being whole though. Love the crumb there – it looks both moist and dense (in the nicest possible way – I don’t like eating cakes that are too airy) and that icing sounds lovely.
Caroline, I was up really early – before 6 – and when I saw the cake, I just had to laugh. I think both Pete and Big Boy had some, although it’s entirely possible it was just Big Boy on his own.. ;-)
Brown butter frosting sounds heavenly! I love the picture with the cut cake, you can see how moist and tempting it is
Thank you! I think you’re all being lovely and trying to save my family from a scolding.. ;-)
I’ve been seeing lots of recipes using browned butter lately.. must be “trending” as they say in twitter, lol.. I can understand why, it must have given your icing such a rich full flavor. Beautiful cake as always. I made a 1-2-3-4 cake and I had to come here because I thought they might be similar. They’re not, but similar in how you can remember then because they’re so simple:)
xo Smidge
Smidge, I’ve heard a lot about the 1-2-3-4 cake, but I’ve never tried it! Have you blogged about it?
Tomorrow it will be ready:)
Yay for ‘go-to’ recipes. I like the sound of the frosting – nutty and fragrant. Give it some fancy french name please like frosting a la beurre noisette :-)
Ha! Yes, we should have done that, Oz! :)
your cake looks so good celia..i’ve not used browned butter in an icing but i can imagine how flavourful it would be because it adds such an interesting dimension to anything i’ve used it in..
Jane, we were really chuffed with how well the icing turned out!
Caramel and butter, delicious, especially browned butter. Yummy Celia!
Thanks Lizzy! Everyone has their favourite now – little D down the road loved this so much that he asked me to make him another one a few days later!
oh yes a pound of caramel. I just love a good recipe!
http://www.mykitchenstories.com.au
Yes, there was quite a lot of sugar, let’s not talk about it, Tania.. ;-)
Heehee don’t you love it when the mice cut such straight lines! :P Sounds delicious!
We have very big mice here.. ;-)
Celia that’s too funny… I wonder which mouse it was?
It would have been mighty hard to resist cutting into it, I’m sure they tried ;-)
Oh, I know which mouse it was, Brydie. I’m pretty sure it was the 19 year old one who raids the kitchen around 1am with the nibblies. Makes me feel like such a granny – I’m in bed before 10! :)
Thanks for this Celia. Bet your boys think they live in heaven. x
Vicki, they’re such a joy to have around, it’s hard to complain when they love my cooking! :)
What nice, neat cake thieves you have in your house. Not too greedy either – mine would have eaten at least half!
Amanda, I think there’s something in teenagers which makes them absolutely starving at the strangest hours.. ;-)
Right! I’m biting the bullet and getting myself a bundt pan, I can wait no longer. What a beautiful cake…
Nick, there are so many lovely ones! My recommendation from experience is to avoid the asymmetrical ones, and also the ones with too many narrow grooves, as the cakes can tend to get stuck in them. Over the years, this Wilton one has turned out to be my favourite – I love the way it gives even wedges for slicing..
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2009/10/21/cool-thing-10-bundt-pans/
I love caramel cake and what a fabulous icing. I’ll have to take your word on what the cake looks like as I’m insisting on doing my computer time out in the sun today (seeing it’s 26C and so much warmer than any day we had in summer) and the sun’s so bright I can barely see the screen. No doubt your cake is perfect Celia xx
Charlie, wasn’t the weather amazing yesterday? We were out and about in tshirts! Hard to believe we’re just three weeks off winter!!
Mmm…caramel cake, I would love a piece with my afternoon cup of tea Celia. The frosting looks good enough to eat on its own!
Jane, there was a bit of a battle over the frosting bowl.. ;-)
From the size and neat cut of missing piece, I think a whole family of very considerate mice must have had the mid-night munchies at your house. Brown butter and caramel, yum, yum, yum!
Liz, they’re very considerate. They didn’t want to wake me up to ask if it would be alright to cut the cake.. ;-)
Oooh! i want it! I want it! I want it!
Note to self, aquire a bundt pan. :-)
Maz, you don’t have a bundt pan? You NEED one! Problem will be which one to choose! :) Here is the post I wrote about them ages ago..
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2009/10/21/cool-thing-10-bundt-pans/
Browned butter frosting sounds like pretty much the best thing you could ever make. Ever. I love everything about this recipe… except the fact that I’m not eating a slice right now!
SK, the frosting was pretty amazing. I think it might well become out standard “white” icing!
Oh so Yummy indeed Celia! Almond, vanilla, brown butter- swoon! No wonder the cake fairies couldn’t resist :)
Becca, you’re kind, thank you! Ha! Cake fairies indeed, more like cake wolves.. ;-)
Waw! That cake with the browned butter frosting just looks amazing, fantastic & apart too! A huge cake: rich & so flavourfull too! :) MMMMMMMMM,…!!!!
Sophie, thank you! It was really big – it fed the whole neighbourhood!
I wish it had been me who snuck in to your kitchen overnight and had a slice of that!
Tandy, you wouldn’t need to sneak in, there’s always a slice here for you! :)
if there is any left count me in for a slice! I like the simplicity of this recipe Celia :)
Thanks Claire! I’m thinking of trying it with Muscovado sugar…
I would be very generous to myself and cut a big piece if that cake. I like that you used those healthy ingredients and unique shape of bundt pan. Love it.
Thank you! Don’t know how healthy they were exactly, but at least they were all real ingredients! :)
I have tried baking with fig jam before and this cake looks really great. Will love to check more of your baking in the future :D
Thanks for stopping by, Zoe! :)
Oh what a delicious looking cake, it looks pretty enough to me. Haven’t made brown butter icing for years. Doesn’t it just smell wonderful as the butter is browning? No wonder this was popular with your neighbours.
Choclette, I’m notorious for burning butter whenever I try something like this, and then we refer to it as “burnt butter icing”.. ;-)
You make some great cakes. Love the idea of brown butter.
Thanks Greg! x
Oh the frosting looks fab!
Nic, the cake on its own was nice, but the frosting made it special (as it so often does!). :)
What a fantastic cake! I will have to try this recipe out myself the next time I get to make a birthday cake. :)
Amber, thank you! I think the frosting is set to become our standard white icing…