Trisha Yearwood (Garth Brooks' wife) has a cooking show and I saw her make her pound cake once. What is unique is that it goes into a cold oven.

It uses 6 eggs, but makes an angel food cake style pound cake.

Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs, at room temperature
3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
Do not preheat the oven. Grease and flour the bottom, sides and tube of a 9-inch tube cake pan.

Cream the butter and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition, but do not overbeat. Set the mixer on slow speed and stir in the flour and cream alternately, beginning and ending with the flour. Add the vanilla and stir well.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and put the cake in a cold oven. Set the oven temperature to 325 degrees F. Begin timing now and bake the cake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Test of doneness by inserting a toothpick in the center of the cake. The toothpick should be clean when it is removed. Cool in the pan for 30 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to continue cooling.

Recipe adapted from Home Cooking with Trisha Yearwood (c) Clarkson Potter 2010

Here is a link that might be useful: Cold Oven Pound Cake

Thanks, jasdip. I may try your recipe tomorrow. I have all the ingredients. The BHG recipe that I posted made 2 loaf pan pound cakes. I just had to taste one, so now I only have 1 to take to sick friends!

I don't understand these pound cakes that have cream in them. I'm sure they're lovely cakes, but the whole point of pound cake is that it's simple, stands up to slicing and stacking stuff on it, and doesn't require fancy ingredients or recipes or techniques.

Perhaps it's not the kind of cake you were looking for, but basic pound cake:

Bring all ingredients to room temperature.

Zero your scale with your bowl on it, and crack your eggs into it. Either adjust the quantity to one pound of eggs, or adjust your pans to the quantity of eggs you're using. You can just weigh the eggs in the shell--shells don't weigh much. I just like having it in a bowl already.

Measure out the same weights as the eggs of butter, flour and sugar. I use AP. Cake flour is too crumbly and soft for my taste, and I like a firm pound cake.

Cream the butter well, making sure that it's light colored and airy, add the sugar slowly and mix well. If you want a flavoring agent, such as vanilla, put it in now. Mix with the eggs, then the flour. (Some people alternate.) If you want lumps, such as currants or walnuts, fold in by hand at the end. Don't overbeat. Pour into loaf pans.

IF you have a slow heating oven (that is, if you can heat it without a preheat mode engaging), start cold so the centers have a chance to heat up. Bake at 325-350°, depending on your oven, until the cake smells good and a skewer comes out clean.

That might not be the type of cake you want to make, however. :)

The fiddliness is all in how in how the recipe is written, for someone who has never made a cake before and must have everything explained.
For someone who has made hundreds/thousands of cakes-many cooks- it is unnecessary.

I agree with Bumblebeez about fiddly recipes. Cooks Illustrated, Lidia B, Fine Cooking, are all very laborious in detailing the steps. It makes so that the very unitiated cooks can make them.

I printed out one of Lidia's recipes and it took 2 pages when 1 would have done, just because of the details.

plllog, your pound cake recipe sounds (1) easy to remember, and (2) like the pound cake my grandmother made.

I see now what bbeez and jasdip are saying about all of the thoroughly explained steps.

The BHG pound cake may not be a traditional pound cake, but it is good. It is not sturdy and the crumb is very small and velvety, almost the opposite of plllog's traditonal cake. Not saying one is better than the other, just that they are each good in different ways.

It is cold and rainy here. Baking today would be "a good thing," as Martha is so fond of saying.

Which cake, plllog's traditional cake or Tricia Yearwood's cream cake, would freeze better?

Plllog, I was thinking up until I read your post that I thought the definition of pound cake is that it takes a pound of butter, a pound of flour, and so on. I've only made pound cake once, and I don't remember which recipe I used. Jerry loves it, so I should make it more often. Those recipes all sound good to me.

Sally

Bbstx, I don't see why either wouldn't freeze just as well. Perhaps, just because it's sturdier, a cake made with AP might do better than one made with cake flour, but so long as you wrap it carefully and use a board, you should be fine either way.

Thanks for reporting on the outcome of the first cake. Sounds good!

Sally, yes, that's it. Pound cake is popular around the world, I think. In French, it's called something like Four Quarters, which makes it easier to remember. That is, equal weights of four ingredients (eggs, flour, butter, sugar), plus whatever flavor things you want to add.

JC

I have nothing to add to the pound cake discussion, but I just LOVE Jeanne Robertson! Oh, that story has me in tears from laughing, thank you. I'm going to watch some more!

We have SiriusXM in the car and I always get so excited when she pops up on the Comedy channel. Guaranteed to crack me up!

My husband hasn't over-degreed himself, but he would have started to do the SAME thing and probably called to double check if he should buy the quantities noted! LOL!

alex, Jeanne Robertson was the after-dinner speaker at a dinner DH and I went to several years ago. I spent a lot of time hoping my mascara wasn't running down my face. Like you, I laughed until I cried.

Here's another of my favs. I can so see myself in this story!

Here is a link that might be useful: Jeanne Robertson Men Don't Know the Style in New York City

I've substituted half-and-half for whipping/heavy cream in cooking recipes.....e.g. a cream sauce.

But what would it be like in Trisha Yearwood's recipe for example? I always have half-and-half on hand, but seldom buy whipping cream.
Do you think it would work?

Oh, that style in NYC is even better than the 7Up cake! Laughing to tears!

Jasdip, you can substitute 1:2 butter and whole milk for heavy cream (i.e., 1 part butter to 2 parts milk), or 1:3 for light cream to maintain approximately the same fat ratio. I'm not awake enough to figure out what the half and half proportion would be. I'm pretty sure Half and Half has about a third of the butterfat of heavy cream. I'm sure you can find a substitution rule if you google it. You could probably just use the half and half, but it would change some of the characteristics of the cake. It's always best to try it as written at least once.

I have baked Trisha's Cold Oven Pound Cake a few times, and it is delicious and moist.

DSIL gave DD an early Christmas present, Ratio by Michael Ruhlman. One chapter discusses pound cake and sponge cake together because they are the same ingredients in the same ratios but the ingredients are combined differently. As plllog noted, it is equal parts flour, butter, sugar, and eggs.

He quotes Harold McGee quoting Hannah Glasse (1747) giving the recipe for pound cake as beating a pound of eggs into a pound of butter followed by flour with your hand or a "great wooden spoon{{gwi:807}}." She says it will take about an hour. Ruhlman notes stand mixers have shortened the time and eased the physical burden.

Now, I want to try sponge cake just to see the difference. To my knowledge, I've never eaten sponge cake.

This post was edited by bbstx on Wed, Dec 10, 14 at 9:53

I'd be fascinated to see the sponge cake recipe, as I've been making them for years and there is no butter in a classic sponge cake, and very little in a Victoria sponge.

I've never had a fail with Paula Deen's recipe. It also goes into a cold oven, bakes for 1.25 hours... and pretty sure EXACTLY same ingredients as TY's recipe??

colleenoz, I regret that I don't have the recipe to give you. I drove home from DD's today, and in the spirit of Christmas, I left her Christmas-gift book with her, in spite of my threat to pack it. :-)

What I remember from reading the 2 recipes is that for the pound cake, the butter and sugar are creamed together. For the sponge cake, the room-temperature eggs* and sugar are beaten together until the eggs have tripled in volume. Then the flour is folded in and the butter is folded in.

I don't recall instructions to melt the butter, but I don't know how else you would "fold it in."

*Ruhlman even suggests that you sit the bowl with eggs and sugar in a pan of water that is just slightly warmer than body temp until the eggs are warmed and the sugar starts to melt. Then put the bowl back on the mixer and whip until tripled in volume.

Here is a link that might be useful: Scroll down to Pound/Sponge Cake

Colleenoz, I was curious about this too. I've been making sponge cake every Passover since I was 16 and never put any butter or other fat into it. Fortunately, I recently bought the Kindle version of the book. Here's what he says in about the butter in the recipe intro:
"If there's one part of the ratio that is most variable, it's the quantity of butter added to your sponge cake. You don't have to use any butter at all. You can use only a fraction of the butter. But I use the full amount here to prove the point about mixing methods being the key to great baking, and because I am a butter advocate. It makes this sponge cake rich and delicious."

Sponge cakes I've made always have the eggs separated with the egg whites whipped for volume and folded into the rest of the batter. His recipe warms the whole eggs and sugar until the sugar starts to dissolve. Then whips them up until tripled in volume. Folds in the flour, then the butter (melted but cool).

I may have to try that just to see how it compares to sponge cakes made with separated eggs. Probably once with and once without the butter. I wonder if it would work with matzah cake meal instead of flour.

It will probably work with the really fine kind of cake meal. I have issues with M. cake meal. I think it tastes like the sands of the desert that the Israelites crossed and is meant to remind us of eating dust before we entered the Promised Land.

But, yeah, even when I've made non-Passover sponge cakes they've been with separated eggs and no fat, or occasionally a chiffon with a bit of oil, for something denser, like honeycake. I don't want a rich, butter sponge cake! I want it to be poofy and puff out air when you bite it and be all eggy and light as down. Though a thoroughly Jewish way to make it rich is to top it with sour cream. :) I don't think it's probably a good combination if you didn't grow up with it, but orange or almond sponge cake with sour cream is one of those remembered delights from childhood. :)

Joy of Baking has a nice article about sponges and other "foam" cakes.

I think my resistance to the butter is about blurring. Butter cakes are rich, moist, a little sticky. Sponge cakes are fluffy, light, a little crumbly. They have such different crumbs. Trying to make a sponge with butter to prove that you can by whipping enough is a fun experiment, but if you put a slice of it and a slice of butter cake next to each other, you won't get as much of that feeling that you're eating two different cakes! Everything blurs to the center, when all of the interesting stuff is at the edges.

plllog, made another pound caked today. Used your method. It is very very good. For one pan, I used 8 7/8 ounces as the standard, that was the weight of 4 eggs. I also added 1/2 Tblsp. vanilla extract.

I think I undercooked it a tad. I cooked it for an hour. My instant read thermometer showed it was about 195 degrees in the center. I think it is supposed to be closer to 210, but I didn't want to burn it. The "crack" in the center of the top is just a tad bit gooey. It is dense, moist, and quite tasty.

DH said it wasn't lemony enough. That may be because there isn't any lemon in it! Who knows where he comes up with these things.

Many thanks for taking the time to give me your recipe!

This post was edited by bbstx on Sun, Dec 14, 14 at 22:17

I'm so glad it came out! Not my recipe though. :) It's as old as Granny's knickers. :) Come to think of it, you probably don't see it published as "pound cake" because you can't copyright public knowledge. You can copyright the wording, in theory, but even there, I don't think it can be written in a unique enough way to prove it. :)

Yes, getting just that right amount of baking so the edges are still a bit tender and the middle is 100% done is the actual tricky part of poundcake. :) How you get that just so depends on your oven and pans more than anything else.

If you're doing a cold start, you can try raising the temperature in stages. First go to 200°, and when it's good and warm go to 325-350°. If you do that, though, you have to hover, at least until you know your timing.

You could also try the method you posted from Ruhlman that kind of coddled the ingredients to slightly warm them. Especially if your kitchen is chilly this time of year.

I'm really glad to hear that it came out so well. Even if the eggs (where most of the yellow is from) weren't lemony enough. ;)

I can do a "cold start" in my oven, so I may try starting at 200 and going up after a few minutes. Yesterday, I cooked it from a cold start on 325 using the convection setting for an hour. I need to see if my oven automatically adjusts down by 25 degrees when you use convection. I know some do.

Guess I'll have to ask my local Kroger if they can get any of the lemon-flavored eggs. HA

That sounds like a good thing to try. You might also just try bake without convection. I think it's better for a lot of traditional baking.

I'm sure you've seen my rants about my stove on other threads. I use the convection because the oven has hot spots. Convection is the only way I know to combat the hot spots - that and rotating the pan about halfway through.

Oh, dear, I'm sure I must have seen that but totally forgot. If your oven doesn't step down automatically, you could definitely reduce by 25°. A little lower heat and possibly a longer bake should work. Most cake issues are related to a too hot oven. :)

I love Trisha Yerwood's Cold Oven Pound Cake.

More Pound Cake Fun! Tuesday, I was making faux kringle while talking to DD, who was in town for a little pre-Christmas visit. I was tired and distracted. The inner ring is composed of butter, flour, salt, and water. The outer ring is pate a choux. But that is neither here nor there.

Although I had read the recipe through, I wasn't paying attention and added 3 eggs to the butter, flour, and salt mixture intended to be the base (water hadn't been added yet). Then I realized my error.

So, using the equal ratios method, DD figured what was needed to turn my mistake into ....drumroll, please ... POUND CAKE!!

Here is a link that might be useful: King Arthur Flour Blog - Kringle

Pound cake saves the day, hooray!!!