This classic cake is a must-have summer cake for your recipe book. It pairs well with every luscious fruit that the summertime produces, plus it’s an easy cake to whip up.
The best part of this classic cake is that its recipe’s ingredient proportions are right there in the title. Yep, that’s right, a pound of each ingredient makes for a pound cake! In fact, it weighs more than a pound because of this.
I’m offering up my classic pound cake recipe with strawberries and whipped cream because, well, it’s a classic! If you pick your own berries in the summer, I suggest you leave them raw and enjoy the flavorful sun-kissed flavors.
If you’re using them slightly out of season or from another region (aka California) feel free to make a macerated strawberry sauce or topping to bring out the flavor. Looking for more recipe tips? Be sure to see all my notes below.
Batter. This cake batter should be extra dense and uses a mixture of egg yolks and whole eggs to balance the thickness. I love the flavor that cultured butter provides, however, if this is harder to come by, feel free to use regular salted butter.
If you only have unsalted on hand, add an extra teaspoon of salt to the batter with the flour. I love the speckles of vanilla bean paste, but again if you don’t have it just simply increase the vanilla extract to 1 tablespoon.
Measuring flour. I’m putting this note in its own category because this is super important. If you are not using a scale to measure a pound of flour, which I highly recommend you do, then it’s important to know how to properly measure flour.
To measure using a dry cup only, make sure to first scoop the flour out of the container using a scoop or large spoon. Dump each scoop into the measuring cup without packing it down. Once the cup is full, use a knife’s edge to scrape off the peak of flour to create a level cup. Avoid packing the flour in and with this method you can get extremely close to an accurate flour measurement. Inaccurate flour measurements can result in dry, dense, and relatively unappetizing end products.
Whipped Cream. The tool I’m using here, the Betsy Bossi whipped cream maker, is awesome! It’s so much fun to hand turn the whipped cream, plus it comes together in a pinch and is really each to serve with the gadget’s decorative tip.
This would be really fun with kids! If you are not using this piece of equipment, go ahead and use a standing mixer with the whisk attachment, or a hand mixer. Feel free to jazz up the whipped cream by adding a dash of vanilla extract and a pinch of salt in addition to the confectioner’s sugar called for in the recipe.
Bundt pan vs. loaf pan. Feel free to use whichever pan you prefer, however, note that this is a very dense batter and a bundt pan helps cook it evenly and thoroughly without getting the edges too brown.
Cook time. There is a delicate balance for a pound cake because it can easily go too far and get too dry, or look totally done on the outside and remain slightly undercooked in the center.
Make sure to use a long skewer or testing stick to get to the center of the cake during cooking. Also, I can’t recommend using an oven thermometer to keep an eye on the oven temperature enough. Whether or not you have one is always my first question when I’m helping people troubleshoot.
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