Poundcakes are considerably underrated and underappreciated. They are plain enough that you can eat them at any moment of the day without being judged (yes, that means breakfast too!) and, dressed up with some berries, English cream or a coulis of some sort, they can very easily be elegant enough to impress dinner guests. Poundcakes are my go-to dessert to make when I feel like eating something sweet but do not want spend too much time or effort whipping something up. They are easy to make and amazing to eat: dense but moist, sweet but not overwhelmingly so and you can make countless variations from one single recipe just by adding stuff!
I have tried and tested a great deal of recipes and found that the one bellow is what works best for me. It is pretty much an adaptation of several recipes mashed into one. I am a huge almond fan, so I usually love adding almond flavors to a lot of my desserts. But, for my poundcake, I decided to splurge a little and used almond paste instead of almond extract. Personally, I find that the almond paste gives the cake an amazing depth of flavor but some people might find it a bit overwhelming. If you are not as big an almond fan as I am, you might want to replace the almond paste with half a teaspoon of almond extract. Or, you could just do the recipe without the almond paste, in which case, use a bit more vanilla.
The Ultimate Poundcake
Makes one 5x9x3 inch cake or 12 to 14 cupcake size cakes
INGREDIENTS
7 ounces of almond paste, grated
1 cup granulated white sugar plus 3 tbsp, divided
1/2 cup butter, room temperature, plus 1 tbsp melted
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 tbsp lemon zest (approx. 1 lemon)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
Grease the inside of a 5x9x3 inch loaf pan with 2 tbsp of butter. I like to line my pan with a sheet of parchment paper (9 inch long and 7 to 8 inch wide, so it sticks out on both sides of the pan). It just makes it easier to pull the cake out of the pan, when it's done. If using a parchment paper, butter the inside of the paper as well. Most recipes will tell you to flour the inside of the pan, but here's a little trick: coat the pan with granulated sugar instead. Approximately 3 tbsp of it. As the cake bakes, the sugar will caramelize, adding a nice little crunch to it.
Beat the almond paste with a stand mixer, at low speed, using the paddle attachment. Slowly add the sugar, 1/4 cup at a time. Continue beating at medium-low speed until incorporated, 3 to 4 minutes.
Add the butter and beat on high speed until smooth, 5 to 6 minutes.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add the zest, vanilla extract and sour cream. Beat until incorporated, 2 minutes.
In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Slowly add the four mixture to the almond paste mixture, beating at medium speed, just until combined (do not overmix the batter).
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until golden brown, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 50 minutes up to an hour.
Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool down. Then, carefully remove the from the pan and put it on a wire rack so it cools completely.
VARIATIONS
If you are like me and do not like to wait an hour for the cake to bake, and if you also despise cutting a cake (no 2 slices are ever the same size and cutting creates crumbs everywhere!), you could pour the batter into a cupcake pan. That way, baking only takes 20 minutes and every portions is the same size! With this recipe, you could have 12 to 14 cupcake sized poundcakes.
I find that this poundcake doesn't need anything else to taste good. But, if you want, you could pour a glaze on top of it once it has cooled. Since there are lemon zests in the cake, use lemon juice for the glaze. Mix 3 tsp of freshly squeezed lemon juice with 1/3 cup of powdered sugar. Add more sugar if you prefer a thicker glaze. Slowly pour the glaze all over the cake.
Instead of a glaze, you could also make a coulis. Raspberry is a personal favorite but any fruit would do. Even better: don't prepare a coulis and just decorate the cake with fruits!
From this recipe, you could pretty much make any type of poundcake you want. Just add ingredients! You like coconut? Just add a cup of shredded coconut! You prefer chocolate chips? Great! Add as many chocolate chips as you like! The possibilities could pretty much go on and on!