Recipe: Basic Pound Cake and Variations

I did not take a photo of this delightful Easter pound cake. As it's name implies, it's a pound cake, so envision pound cake. For Easter, we served it with leftover homemade plum brandy ice cream-- did I post that recipe?-- and it induced a food coma the likes of which... . Well, it's sort of hard to explain. The closest I can come to describing it is that I thought I was being "resurrected to Heaven."

This humble basic pound cake-- we made the 7-UP variation-- is also excellent with coffee or tea for your morning and afternoon snack. 

BASIC POUND CAKE AND VARIATIONS

4 sticks butter, softened

5 eggs 

¼ tsp salt 

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla 

3 C sugar 

3 C flour, sifted 3 times

¾ C milk 

Cream butter and sugar together well, and add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Add salt, baking powder, vanilla, sifted flour, and milk, and beat batter for 5 minutes. Pour batter into a greased and floured bundt pan. Place cake in cold oven, heat oven temperature to 325^o, and bake 1 hour 30 minutes. Slice cake when cool.

VARIATIONS

Lemon Pound Cake: Omit baking powder and milk, add ½ tsp baking soda, ½ pint sour cream, and 1 oz lemon extract.

 

German Chocolate Pound Cake: Add 1 package (12 oz) German Sweet Chocolate pieces, melted.

 

7-Up Pound Cake: Omit milk and add ¾ C (6 oz) 7-Up, 1 tsp lemon extract, and 1 tsp almond extract.

 

Brown Sugar Pound Cake: Omit 3 C sugar, add 3 ½ C brown sugar. When cool top with the following: ½ stick butter and 1 C chopped pecans, cooked over low heat until very light brown, removed from heat, another stick butter added with 1 lb powdered sugar and enough milk to make a glaze to drizzle over cake.