I liked watching Sohla’s video on food 52 for making vanilla pound cakes. I started by making just the vanilla and hope to try swirling chocolate and perhaps trying a a fruit cake with blueberries and jam. In the video usually I do not beat the butter long enough in a mixer and following the tips I hope the improve the consistency of the cake. Also I like the tips to swirl the batter before baking. I found the cake really nice although for the plain vanilla I liked having a stawberry sauce or making a lemon glaze. I was not really a good crack at the top for the expansion but I’ll try again next time. From the video I like the options to add things. Another good tip is to really get everything to room temperature. Usually the eggs and butter are cold from the fridge when cook them. This is a good recipe and start with and I like all the options.
video on youtube
Ingredients
- 14T (196g) unsalted butter at room temperature, plus 1T for buttering pan
- 1c (200g) granulated sugar (I did 200g to make less sweet, called for 1.25c or 250g)
- 1/2t baking powder
- 1/2t salt
- 3 large eggs, at room temperature plus 1 egg yolk
- 1/2c (120g) sour cream
- 1t vanilla extract
- 1/2c (187g) all purpose flour
Steps
- preheat oven to 350F, grease 9x5 metal loaf pan with butter
- add butter, sugar, baking powder, salt to mixing bowl
- cream butter with paddle, cream for 6-8m until really creamed, keep scraping butter off paddle every minute
- add each egg one at a time, scraping paddle
- in small bowl mix sour cream and vanilla until smooth and lump free
- add half sour cream mixture, mix on low 15s, can add wet extras here
- add half flour and mix until incorporated, can add dry extras here
- repeat adding rest of sour cream mixture
- add rest of flour
- add mixture to pan
- swirl with spatula to make sure batter distrubuted
- smooth top with offset spatula
- with wet butter knife slice down ceter to get an even crack
- bake 60-70m until fels firm and crust is deep brown
- let cool for 10m in pan, then loosen edges with offset spatula and remove to wire rack
