Sunday Treats: Pound Cake

This post is dedicated to Niks who had requested me for this recipe. A pound cake is simply 1 pound each of butter, sugar, flour and eggs. It's as simple as that! However, it has a hundred different recipes and lots of different variations. It is the most simple and satisfying cake one could ever come across. It is full of butter and seriously delicious. Simple yet right for any occasion. According to me the best way to have pound cake is straight up without any of the fuss of chocolate or nutella or fruit or cream (though they all taste excellent i must say). Plus the left overs can be made and used in a fruit trifle (recipe coming tomorrow for Sunday treats).

This is my forever tried and tested recipe that has worked for me for years.

Ingredients:
400gm Flour
400gm Butter
400gm Caster Sugar
4 eggs
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda (soda bi carb)
1 tsp vanilla essence
Some extra butter and flour for lining the cake tin
Optional: Powdered sugar/fresh cream/strawberries/ chocolate sauce to decorate

You will need a cake tin and an electric whisk
Also, quick note: this is a good opportunity to use your fancy cake tins with all the weird and wonderful decorations because the cake is so plain and simple, this just adds a little pizzaz to the final cake and can give this simple cake a wow effect.

Method:
First it is important to have all your ingredients at room temperature. You should take them out of your refrigerator at least 2 hours before your actual cooking time. This is a very important tip for a successful cake.

• Grease the cake tin with butter and then dust with flour so that you have an even and thin coat of butter and flour in your cake tin. Remove excess flour
• Preheat oven to 180 degrees centigrade. 
• Mix the baking powder and baking soda in the flour and sift the flour and baking powder together
• Break the eggs in a bowl, add the vanilla essence and beat together lightly
• Take the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat with the electric whisk

• Once this mixture turns light and fluffy, add the egg mixture and flour mixture in alternating batches
• With this I mean to say first put half the egg mixture, then half of the flour, then the other half of the egg mixture and finally the flour
• Each time you must mix till everything is just incorporated
• Now your cake batter is ready and you can put it in your lined cake tin. 
• Bake for 45 minutes at 180 degrees or till a toothpick inserted comes out clean

Be careful with your pound cake and do not handle it or try to take it out of the cake tin when it is hot. Leave to cool on a wire rack and once cooled then you can do as you please with the cake. 

Niks: 6 cups of flour is waaay too much flour to make any cake with. If you want to equate the above in cups then it would be 2 cups flour, 2 cups butter and 2 cups sugar. If you absolutely want to use 6 cups then take 6 cups of all the quantities and use around 10 eggs for the same.