I love baking and it’s one of the things I credit to helping me deal with the stress of postpartum depression. Anyhow last night I was in the mood for a pound cake. I should say however I tend to bake a pound cake about every week unless I made cupcakes first and I don’t want to have too much cake and it goes to waste. I usually use my tried and true Something Different Pound Cake recipe I found on allrecipes.com.
Well, the last time I made a pound cake I opted for a different recipe and I didn’t know if I liked it much but when I tasted it I just loved the flavor and my hubby loved the fact that it wasn’t as heavy as a usual pound cake. So yesterday I used the same recipe I used for the first time about three weeks ago. It’s just a Basic Pound Cake recipe that I also found on allrecipes.com. I’ll post it later in my post.
So when I took the cake out of the oven my hubby looks at it and says “why is your top cracked?” So I replied, “that’s because when it rises in the oven is makes the cake crack because it rises around the center of the cake.” Honestly, I don’t know for sure but it may be letting out some of the air that gets in the cake during mixing but at any rate he felt like that wasn’t good enough.
He then tells me that I’m the only person he ever saw baked a pound cake that cracked on top. I told him that’s usually because when you see pound cake it’s from the bottom so you don’t know what it looks like. His next point which he uses more often in cooking/baking discussions is to tell me that he saw all his grandmother’s cakes and she’s never looked like mines. I should add he did say they always taste great he just didn’t get why they cracked. So it made me think. I think I know how to bake a pound cake…. Here’s a picture of the cake.
So after last night, I wanted to see if I was the only person who baked pound cakes and the tops cracked. I hoped on my go-to site allrecipes.com and did a search. Here is what I found.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Ok well needless to say most of the recipes that show the pound cakes from the top it’s cracked in some way. So I think I was right. I can bake a pound cake. However, I will say when I bake in my round tube baking pan I prefer to leave the cake with the top showing but if I use my bundt pan I will turn my cake upside down.
Here is also a picture of a previous pound cake that I turned upside down.
My upside-down pound cake
Here is the recipe that I used yesterday.
- 1 cup butter
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 3 cups white sugar
- 5 eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cups milk
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 10 inch Bundt pan. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream together the butter, shortening, and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the milk. Pour batter into prepared pan.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 80 to 90 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
