Mom’s Old-Fashioned “True” Pound Cake

This recipe is my mom’s pound cake. It’s not just any pound cake, either. This is the old-fashioned, from scratch, pound of everything pound cake. It’s lucious, addicting and not for the dieters. I thought I would share it with you. This is also my first step-by-step photo post so bear with me. 🙂

First the recipe: If you want this to be as yummmmmy as it should be, don’t substitute. I only make this twice a year. Sweetie’s BD and my BD. Today is his although he’s working so we will celebrate this weekend. So go all out and really make this decadently good. It’s worth it. This recipe also doubles very well. I did that today so the pictures you will see are very full because of being doubled.

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Mom’s Old-Fashioned “True” Pound Cake

1 3/4 cups UNsalted, sweet butter (not marg, not shortening, not salted butter)
3 cups sugar
6 eggs (all of the egg)
1 1/4 cup whole milk (only use whole milk)
2 tsp vanilla (real vanilla, not imitation)
4 cups flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
dash of Mace  (this you can fudge if you have to and use Nutmeg, but mace is much better)

Set out eggs and butter to soften and warm to room temp.

Sift flour, salt, bp and mace together 4 times. (YES! I said 4 times. Noone has to sift anymore you say? They do if they are good bakers and understand that the lighter and fluffier and more aerated your dry goods are the lighter and fluffier your cake will turn out. Don’t argue. Just DO it. <winks> )

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.Cream butter and sugar very well. Add eggs one at a time. (just do it. it helps with the incorporation of the eggs. Oh and in case you were curious… when you double it, that’s 7, count them, 7 sticks of butter. This cake is not for the faint of heart… or arterie.)

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Mix the milk and the vanilla together in a seperate bowl. (Doesn’t that look purty? lol)

Add the dry ingreds. and the milk mixture alternately, but slowly to the creamed sugar and butter.

(Ok, do it slowly unless you want to wear it. Seriously…slowly.)

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When it’s all together, turn your mixer up and whip the dickens out of it for at LEAST 2 mins. I clean up a bit when its doing this so mine might mix for 4-5 mins. I don’t care. It makes it creamier and lighter.

If you don’t have a good strong mixer and a really big bowl,  don’t double it at one time. Do two seperate batters. I’m not responsible for overflowing bowls or burned out mixer motors. I warned you. Mine is a Kitchen-Aid Pro series so it can handle it without a problem in case you were wondering what I was using.

Grease your pans.

(OK, this is up to you, BUT…I don’t use Pam or Baker’s Secret in my good baking pans. It leaves residue that I don’t care for and it does flavor the baked goods. I use the fingers God gave me to butter, yes we’re still using butter, and then flour my pans the old fashioned way. My mom and I used to have a competition on who could shimmy their flour around the walls and spill the least flour out. Still, this step I’ll let you decide.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes. (This means at 45 start testing your cake with a thin skewer. When it comes out clean, it’s done.)

Now another baking tip:
You know how when you bake a cake it rises higher in the middle and makes a dome? If you don’t want that here’s how you fix it. Take an old terrycloth towel and cut it into long 1.5 inch wide strips. Soak those in COLD water, the colder the better. Then wrap them around the outside of your cake pan and pin it in place before sliding the pan in the oven. This helps you have less of a mound in the middle of your cake. Wilton also sells insulated strips that do the same thing, but unless you find them on sale, they are a little pricey and this works just as well.

Waiting to go into the oven:

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Baked and cooling on racks: