Thursday, February 09, 2012

plainly perfect pound cake





i'm not a cake person. i'm not. seriously. i'm a pastry person. cake...not so much...but this one, well, this one might just change my whole outlook on cakes. looks like this year, i might be giving cakes a chance.
this is called the plainly perfect pound cake, from Trish Boyle's The Cake Book. i took the recipe from one of my favorite blogs, rima's blog, bisous a toi. i've tried a few recipes from her blog and they were all wonderful. plus, i kinda am in love with her daughter, the ever so cute lil miss sonia. :-)

so, i made this cake a few days ago when i was invited for lunch at a friend's house. and i'm making it again today, i guess this says a lot about this cake, and i'm not stopping at today only, i'll be baking 2 more tomorrow to give to a friend and my aunt. haaaa...



this cake reminds me of my childhood. a long long time ago, in mamak shops they would have this marble cake, wrapped in plastic placed on a plate at every table. i have been looking for it high and low, sadly, mamak shops nowadays no longer have them. the moment i took a bite of this cake, the memories of me eating at mamak shops with my late father came back. so, this recipe, is definitely for keeps! *chicken dance*

shall we now go to the recipe?

you will need:
200g plain flour
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
227g butter
250g caster sugar
4 large eggs
1 tsp finely grated lemon zest, from 1 lemon
1 tsp finely grated orange zest, from 1 orange
1 tsp vanilla essence
80ml heavy cream, i used thickened cream

the how to:
1)  preheat the oven to 170°C.

2)  sift flour together with baking powder and salt, set aside.

3)  cream butter at medium high speed until creamy (about 2 mins), gradually add sugar and continue beating till the mixture is light and fluffy (about 4 mins).

4)  reduce the speed of your mixer and add in the eggs one by one till they are all mixed.

5)  add the lemon and orang zest along with vanilla essence.

6)  then, add in the flour in three additions, alternating with the cream (added in two additions).

7)  pour in a pound cake mould and bake for 60-70 minutes or until the cake turns brown and the testing skewer comes out clean.*

*my cake baked for about 40 minutes or so. different oven different timing, perhaps?

**i might need to increase on the baking time because the last one i baked sorta 'collapsed' in the centre and they were not cooked properly, so, i shall be increasing the baking time to the prescribed 60 mins. we'll see.

all i can say is that, this is a wonderful cake. it's nothing fancy but yet, it satisfies whatever craving for cake that you have. you can top the cake with some lemon curd if you want, or dust it with some icing sugar or whatever kind of frosting that you like, but i prefer it plain. i guess the name of the cake says it all - plainly perfect.

luckluck you guys!!

recipe taken from: http://www.bisousatoi.com/ thanks rima!! can't wait to try the other recipe!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Yummmmmmmmmmmm...........!!

dottology said...

memang yummmm! hehehehe

Rima said...

Sigh.. now i hv to bake it again and its all bec of u! hahaha

dottology said...

rimaaaaa...hihihi...you should, because i'll be baking two more batches for this coming weekend!!!