To make pound cake is a traditional British recipe, based on Hannah Glasse's recipe of 1747, for a classic butter, sugar and egg cake that's made with a pound (450g) of all the main ingredients, that's flavoured with caraway seeds, and which rises by beating air into the batter for a long time. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: To make pound cake.
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This is a traditional British recipe redacted from Hannah Glasse's 1747 volume The Aft of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, the classic Georgian cookbook.
Original Recipe
To make a pound cake.
TAKE a pound of butter, beat it in an earthern pan with your hand one way, till it is a fine thick cream, then have ready twelve eggs, but half the whites ; beat them well, and beat them up with the butter, a pound of flour beat in it, a pound of ſugar, and a few carraways. Beat it all well together for an hour with your hand, or a great wooden ſpoon, butter a pan and put it in, then bake it an hour in a quick oven.
For change, you may put in a pound of currants, clean waſhed and picked.
Modern Redaction
Ingredients:
450g butter
6 whole eggs
6 egg yolks
450g plain flour
450g sugar
2 tsp baking powder (optional and omit for an 'authentic' version — baking powder was invented during Victorian times, 100 years after this recipe)
2 tsp caraway seeds, lightly crushed
Method:
Bring the butter to room temperature then place in a bowl and beat with an electric whisk until pale and creamy (originally a wooden spoon or large ballon whisk would have been used, but as the raising of this cake is dependent on incorporating lots of air in the batter, this would have required plenty of elbow grease). Now add the sugar, a little at the time and beat into the butter until pale and creamy.
Add the eggs into a separate bowl and beat with your whisk until pale and very frothy (incorporating air into the eggs is what makes this cake rise). Add the eggs, a little at a time into the creamed butter, working thoroughly to combine after each addition.
Beat the eggs and creamed butter mix thoroughly together then add the flour a little at a time, mixing thoroughly to combine as you add. Finally add the caraway seeds and fold through the mixture (along with the baking powder, if using). Beat well for 20 minutes with an electric whisk to aerate the mixture then turn into a cake tin that's been greased and lined with greaseproof (waxed) paper.
Transfer to an oven pre-heated to 180°C and bake for about 75 minutes, or until browned on top and cooked through (a skewer inserted into the centre should emerge cleanly). Allow to cool in the tin for 20 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before storing, or slicing and serving.
