If you’re looking for a super rich cake, you can’t go far wrong with pound cake. Made up from the standard cake ingredients of butter, eggs, sugar and flour, a pound cake lives up to its name as the equal ratio of all the ingredients means that you end up with quite a thick, heavy cake.
On Pound Cake Day, cake lovers around the world get to celebrate the hearty treat with its very own day. After all, raising awareness about cake is a very important task!
The History of Pound Cake Day
The pound cake’s name appears to have come from 18th century Europe, where the original recipe appears to call for a pound’s weight of each of the ingredients. This recipe would give you quite a big pound cake if you were to try it (technically, you’d have a cake that weighs four pounds!) so it’s likely that they were made for large gatherings or with the intention of selling off individual slices. Supposedly the mixture was devised so that even people who were unable to read might be able to memorize how it is made.
Later recipes tended to stick to the ratio of equal parts all ingredients, but so that it would result in a smaller cake. One easy way of doing this is simply halving or quartering your pound measurement. Nowadays, the kind of pound cake you can buy at the store will likely have a lighter, more buttery consistency, and depending on where you are you might get a slightly different style. In Britain, a pound cake is usually known as Madeira cake, and in France you might find variants with chocolate and lemon juice.
How to celebrate Pound Cake Day
Making pound cake is so easy, there’s no reason why you can’t try your hand at cooking one up on Pound Cake Day. Make a traditional one with equal parts of each ingredient, or you could make it a little lighter by whisking the eggs first and adding some baking powder.
You could also try making it with sour cream in place of butter, which will make a super moist cake.
Mix things up a little by adding some vanilla essence, and sprinkle your resulting cake with plain icing and berries for a little bit extra. Be sure to share with your family and your workmates! Or, of course, you could keep it all for yourself…