Easy Pound Cake

 

Oh Pound Cake.  How I love thee.  Easy Pound Cake?  Mmm.  Yes.

Growing up.....boy, ya know, I really never realized how many food related memories I had.  And apparently it's quite a few.  And I'm always so surprised, heh!

But growing up, my mom would stop at the Sara Lee outlet store because well duh, Sara Lee, baked goods.  It was always a magical place, sparkling and twinkling and bustling, and time suddenly switched to slow motion.

Yes, I'm trying to say I loved going there with her.

Every time, and I'm sure she knew it was coming, I'd ask for a slice of pound cake as they sold prepackaged single serving slices.  She would kind of hem and haw but I mean, c'mon, it was a tradition, gotta get it.  She'd relent.

And every time, every single time, I'd savor that slice of Pound Cake as if no one was ever going to bake it again.

Because Pound Cake.  So good.  Love it.

My camera lens had a smudge on it throughout these photos, sorry.

Although.  I married a whackadoo, that's for sure.  Mike claims to not be a fan of chocolate but in his top ten dessert related items that I make, several, if not all, contain chocolate.

Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream.

Hot Fudge Pudding Cake.

Chocolate Cream Pie.  (No link, sorry!)

Neither here nor there but he doesn't like Pound Cake.  What? 

I had never met anyone prior to Mike who didn't like Pound Cake.  I mean, obviously they exist as there's Mike.  There are others I'm sure and if you don't like Pound Cake, that's perfectly ok but today it is Easy Pound Cake.

There will likely be more Pound Cakes to come on this blog too.

Maybe he'll come around some day.

How could he not?!

So generally speaking, the original premise was a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a pound of eggs, a pound of flour, and a couple sundry extras.

Over time, as time does, the recipe adapted, changed, ebbed and flowed to today where there are probably a hundred bazillion different versions out there.

As I said though, today is this easy version.  And by easy, that does not mean lacking.  In fact, I was so shocked by this one as it so closely resembles that Sara Lee one from my youth.   Color me tickled pink!

So start with gathering up your ingredients, measuring things out, room temp'ing, blah blah.

Sift those dry ingredients (sans the sugar) together with a fine mesh sieve* or a sifter* if you've got one.  Please don't skip this step.  Sifting is good.  And it only takes a couple seconds.  It's worth it.  Seriously.

Prep your loaf pan* with some spray and if you want for added ease-of-removal protection, line the bottom with parchment paper.*

Cream up the butter and sugar until nicely fluffy, yum yum.

Add your milk and extract of choice, or combine extracts if you'd like.  The combo might look curdled or separated here but no need to worry, it'll work out.

Dump in your sifted dry ingredients, barely blend them in.

Add your eggs one at a time, making sure each is mixed in completely then it's off to the oven.

Here is an awesomely cool trick I heard somewhere:  to get a beautiful split top crack on top of the cake, dip a bench scraper* or knife into melted butter and drag it across the middle.  When baked, the cake will split along that butter edge. 

Right?!  Totes works too, see below!

All righty, bake this baby up and start checking with your toothpick tester at about eighty minutes.  You may need up to about ninety or so.

Split top perfection!

And tada, wasn't that easy?!  So easy.  Easy Pound Cake!

Yum.  It's so delightful too.  Mmm. 

Ok, I have to go, I need to go bake one now, bye.

*The fine mesh sieves, sifters, loaf pans, parchment paper, and bench scrapers are Amazon affiliate links.  Happy baking, thanks!  Please see the "info" tab for more, well, info.