Pound Cake
Historically equal weights of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour — dense, rich, and entirely creaming-leavened.
What's going on here
The name is the recipe: historically, a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour, a ratio simple enough that it required no written recipe to remember, and this version keeps close to it while nudging the balance slightly for a more tender modern crumb. With no baking powder or soda in a strict pound cake, all of the lift has to come from the creaming step and from the air whipped into the eggs, which is why this batter is beaten longer and more thoroughly at each stage than a standard layer cake's — there's no chemical leavening to fall back on if the mechanical aeration falls short. Adding the eggs slowly, one at a time, and fully incorporating each before the next goes in, matters more here than in almost any other cake in this cookbook, since a curdled batter (from eggs added too fast) traps air far less effectively than a smooth one, and this cake has no other lift to compensate. The dense, tight crumb that results — by design, not by error — is part of what makes pound cake hold up well to being sliced thin, toasted, or served under fruit and cream.
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 cupButter, softened
- 1 3/4 cupsGranulated sugar
- 5Eggs
- 2 tspVanilla extract
- 2 1/4 cupsAll-purpose flour
- 1/2 tspSalt
- 1/4 cupSour cream(optional)
not traditional, but improves tenderness noticeably
Instructions
Prep
- Heat the oven to 165°C (330°F) and grease and flour a loaf or bundt pan.
Cake
- Cream the butter and sugar on medium-high until pale and very fluffy.
Tip: Go longer than you would for a standard cake — with no chemical leavening at all here, this step is carrying all of the lift by itself.
- Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition until fully incorporated before adding the next, then beat in the vanilla.
Tip: Take this slowly. Eggs added too fast can curdle the batter, and a curdled batter holds far less air than a smooth one — with nothing else to leaven this cake, that curdling directly costs you lift.
- Whisk the flour and salt together and fold in gently, along with the sour cream if using, just until no streaks of flour remain.
Bake
- Scrape into the pan and bake until deeply golden and a skewer comes out clean.
Tip: This bakes slower and longer than most cakes in this book because of its density — check well before you expect it to be done, then keep going as needed.
Cool
- Cool in the pan 15 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.
Claude Score
Well-built recipe. Sound ratios and real flavor development.
- Ratio soundness25% of total
- 90
- Flavor development25% of total
- 86
- Texture control20% of total
- 88
- Reliability20% of total
- 78
- Pantry accessibility10% of total
- 92
How well the formula holds up against known working ratios.
Whether the method builds flavor or merely combines ingredients.
How deliberately moisture, gluten, starch, and fat are controlled.
How much margin for error the recipe leaves a home cook.
Whether you can make it from staples, right now, with normal gear.
Correctly identifies that with no chemical leavening at all, this cake depends entirely on mechanical aeration — which explains why the mixing technique here has to be more careful than usual.
Scored on the science of cooking — ratios, flavour development, texture control, how forgiving the method is, and whether you can make it from what's in the cupboard. Not a measure of how much you'll like it.
Tips for this recipe
Cake came out dense and heavy, more than intended
This cake is meant to be dense, but if it's gummy or sunken rather than just tight-crumbed, the eggs were likely added too fast and curdled the batter, or the creaming step was cut short.
Why sour cream, if it's not traditional
A small amount of acid and fat noticeably softens the crumb without changing the cake's fundamental character — a reasonable modern adjustment that keeps the historical ratio's spirit while making the result a bit more forgiving.