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Perfect Pound Cake

AmericanDessertMedium
Prep
20 min
Cook
50 min
Total
70 min
Serves
16
✦

Ingredients

  • 1.5 cupunsalted butter, at room temperature (3 sticks, or 12 ounces)
  • 1.75 cupgranulated sugar (12.5 ounces)
  • 6large eggs, at room temperature (12.5 ounces, weighed in their shell)
  • 1 tbspvanilla extract
  • 1 tspbaking powder
  • 0.25 tspsalt
  • 0.5 cupcultured buttermilk, room temperature, or at least not cold
  • 2.75 cupall purpose flour (12.5 ounces)
  • powdered sugar for dusting

Method

  1. 1Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour a standard 9-10 inch non stick bundt pan.
  2. 2Make sure your ingredients are at room temperature.
  3. 3Cream the butter and sugar together for a full 5 minutes in a stand mixer, scraping down the sides a couple of times. They should get really light and fluffy. You can use electric beaters if you like.
  4. 4Beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating well and scraping down between each addition. Now beat a further 2-3 minutes! (A LOT of beating, I know, but it will pay off.) You should now have a very silky smooth batter.
  5. 5With the mixer on low, blend in the extract, baking powder, and salt.
  6. 6Alternately blend in the buttermilk and flour, starting and ending with the flour. Mix just until no dry flour remains, you can do the last bit by hand. Make sure you've incorporated all the butter from the bottom of the bowl.
  7. 7Turn the batter into your prepared pan and smooth out evenly. Bake for 20 minutes, then, without opening the oven door, turn the temperature down to 325F and bake another 25-30 minutes until the top is domed and springs back to the touch. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out without wet batter on it. (Tip: don't insert your toothpick directly into a crack, insert at a diagonal.) I loosely tent the cake towards the end of baking to prevent excess browning. As always, your oven or pan may vary from mine, so your baking time may be different.
  8. 8Let the pan cool for 15 minutes on a rack, then loosen all edges with a flexible spreading knife before inverting.
  9. 9Let cool completely on the rack. Dust with powdered sugar.
  10. 10Tip: Don't slice your cake until you're ready to serve it, otherwise it can dry out.

Notes

Perfect Buttermilk Pound Cake — once in a lifetime recipe with perfect ratio of butter, sugar, eggs and flour. SUBSTITUTIONS: (1) If you'd like to substitute milk or half and half for the buttermilk, you can. (2) If you want to substitute sour cream, thin it with a little water so it's more the consistency of thick cultured buttermilk. As with all cakes, they will dry out once sliced and exposed to air, so slice it when you are ready to eat, not before.