First, thank you to everyone who shared advice and recommendations on my previous post. I learned a lot and it’s been a lot of fun. Second, I wanted to provide an update on my trials.
I started by preparing what was supposed to be half the recipe and put it in a loaf pan. I used 3 eggs, 2c sugar, 2c sifted cake flour, 1c butter, and vanilla and put it in a cold oven. (I didn’t think through very carefully and this is actually not half of the recipe but rather just some numbers I put together?!)
The top rose and browned beautifully and after 60+ mins I tested with a toothpick and it came out clean. After cooling a bit, I went to put it on a rack and discovered the top had cooked but the middle was still dough – and my toothpick was too short to reach! Picture 1.
Even though it fell apart, I put it back in the oven to try and bake through to at least get a sense of its taste. That didn’t work out very well. The dough was too dense (over beaten maybe?) so even if the top was a sweet and crispy brittle… the inside never got very cake-y. Picture 2.
Round two, I decided to go more along the lines of the recipe as provided with a couple of slight tweaks. I used 6 eggs, 3c sugar, 3c sifted cake flour, 3 1/2 sticks of butter, and vanilla. This seemed in line with ratios I saw looking across many recipes.
Y’all. This cake is delicious and has the most perfect crumbly crust. I will not be testing further. I’m so excited to make again next week for our family get together! Pictures 3 & 4.
I decided to try it with basic ingredients to have a baseline so I didn’t even buy bakers (caster) sugar or grind mine to make it more fine. Thrilled that something so simple (5 ingredients!) can be so delicious.
TL;DR Planning to recreate the recipe that my parents made on their first date, for their upcoming 60th wedding anniversary. Halving the recipe and my lack of skill led to a comically bad first try but I stuck closer to original recipe and came out with a prefect bake on my second try!
Thanks again for the fun discussion and answering my questions!
by been_jammmin
5 Comments
Good for you! I saw your first post and did a little dive into pound cake recipes since I knew that contemporary recipes are rarely equal parts sugar, butter, flour, and eggs. Some older editions of Joy of Cooking used to have long discussions about methods and science behind different types of cake, and I had always loved reading those but didn’t remember an essay about pound cakes. So I did some more reading, and one thing I came across was a theory that the older 1-1-1-1 recipes were meant to produce a dry cake that kept well – not at all what we expect from cakes today. I’m so glad that it turned out to be something you like!
Love to see a classic! Looks great OP:)
Glad to hear you Made It Work 💛
Such a cool idea, I’m sure they’ll love it. Happy Anniversary to your parents!
Looks great! After reading your first post, I went searching for 4x sugar, and only found one brand—Dixie Crystals—that seemed to produce it, but upon further reading, it appears to be discontinued. Glad to hear you found a workaround!