Pound Cake - Sand Cake - Layer Cake Bases

Pound Cake - Sand Cake - Layer Cake Bases © kvalifood.com

A beloved recipe goes by many names. The pound cake is the base recipe for chemically leavened cakes. It’s incredibly easy and flexible. If you want to experiment with baking, use it as your starting point.

Calling it a pound cake is perhaps a bit of an overstatement these days. The name probably comes from the old days when a housewife had to feed an entire farm full of hungry hands — back then they likely used a pound of each ingredient. Today, 200 grams is plenty. So here’s the recipe for “200-gram cake” … hmm, that doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. (I’ve actually found that if you use a full pound of each ingredient, the recipe fills a large deep roasting pan, so that’s presumably where the name comes from. 200 grams is for a springform pan, and 500 grams is for a large roasting pan.)

Ingredients

dry

  • 200 g flour
  • 1 tbsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda (especially useful if you’re adding something acidic to the batter)
  • 1 pinch salt

wet

  • 200 g sugar (Yes, sugar counts as wet in this context.)
  • 200 g butter (You can easily get away with 100 g butter — I usually do.)
  • 4 eggs (each weighs about 50–60 g)

Directions

Mix the “dry” ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Stir together all the “wet” ingredients: sugar, eggs, and butter.

If you’re not using a stand mixer, it’s easiest to melt the butter first.

If you are using a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar together first, then add the eggs at the end.

The cakes I make most often from this recipe are:

Sand Cake / Pound Cake

Pour the batter into a loaf pan.

Bake at 355°F (180°C) for 40 minutes.

Layer Cake Bases

Pour the batter into a springform pan.

Bake for 40 minutes at 355°F (180°C).

Let it cool for at least 20 minutes.

Split it into three equal layers.

Apple Cake with Cinnamon

Cut 2–3 apples into wedges.

Coat them with cinnamon sugar.

Pour the batter into a springform pan.

Press the apple wedges down into the batter.

Sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the top of the cake so it’s evenly covered.

Bake for 40 minutes at 355°F (180°C).

Marble Cake

Set aside one third of the batter. Stir in 2 tbsp cocoa powder, then thin it out with a little milk until it’s back to the same consistency as before.

Use a loaf pan.

Layer the batter “light–dark–light”.

Run a spoon through with up-and-down movements to distribute the dark batter.

Bake for 40 minutes at 355°F (180°C).

Orange Chocolate Sand Cake

Add the juice and grated zest of 1 orange to the batter.

Chop a 70% chocolate bar (100 g) and mix it in.

Add an extra 100 ml of flour to compensate for the extra liquid from the orange juice.

(Optionally add 200 g grated marzipan — it makes the cake more moist and spongy.)

Pour everything into a springform pan.

Bake for 40 minutes at 355°F (180°C).

This recipe is similar to the Orange Chocolate Muffin recipe, but a little easier to make.