Vanilla Pound Cake

Certain cakes need no introduction. The Pound cake is self explanatory. You take a pound each of the four main ingredients: flour, butter, eggs and sugar. So actually a Pound Cake weighs about four pounds. But these are just semantics. The proof of the pudding lies in the taste. And Pound Cakes taste heavenly, as it should considering there is almost a pound of butter in it.
Any newbie asking for a simple recipe should try out the pound cake because of the over simplicity of the measurement of ingredients. And don’t you feel that the pound cake has a simple elegance, of look, of taste, of presentation. No fancy stuff here. Simple baking. Great tasting. A winner everytime.
I have adapted the recipe from King Arthur flour webpage. And it has turned out really well.


Ingredients

1 cup salted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs
2 cups flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ cup milk
1 tspvanilla essence

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees Celsius. Grease and line a 9” loaf tin. Beat the sugar till light and fluffy. Beat in the sugar gradually. Add eggs one by one, mixing well after each addition. Sift together flour, salt and baking powder. Mix together milk and vanilla essence. Now add flour and milk alternately, starting and ending with flour. So it should be flour-milk-flour-milk-flour. Fold in gently. Do not over beat. Pour batter in the tin. Bake for about 50-55 minutes. Depending on your oven temperature you might need to adjust the time accordingly, about 5 minutes less or extra.