The Classic: Mama's Pound Cake

This is the pound cake recipe you've been waiting for and you didn't even know it! This is as pure and traditional as pound cake gets. Yes, I've enjoyed many sour cream and cream cheese pound cakes over the years. But, I will be bold enough to say that this pound cake would beat those pound cakes in a taste test. There, I said it! The recipe isn't named for my Mama although it should be. I've baked it for her many, many times over the years. It's her favorite and she's not willing to share it. She will hide it in the corner of the kitchen until everyone leaves. This beauty is from Paula Deen's The Lady and Sons Savannah Country Cookbook, copyright 1997.


Mama's Pound Cake

1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup Crisco shortening
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cream butter and shortening together. Add sugar, a little at a time. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each. Sift together dry ingredients and add to mixture alternately with milk, starting with flour and ending with flour. Add vanilla. Pour into a greased and floured tube pan and bake for 1-1/2 hours.

I've had this book forever, before Paula got famous on the Food Network. It's a wondeful cookbook and I've used it often.

The first two things I do when I start working on a pound cake is preheat the oven and prepare my pan. Always grease and flour a tube pan when making a pound cake. I wouldn't trust cooking spray with this beauty.

Before I get started, I like to read through the recipe and see what prep work I can do first. I always like to blend the dry ingredients together first in a small bowl and have them ready to go. Here's the flour.

Baking powder

And, finally add the salt. I just stir the ingredients together. I've never sifted them like the directions say and this cake has always turned out perfect.

I also go ahead and measure out the sugar in another bowl and have that ready to go. Getting everything measured out ahead of time really helps with preparing the batter. It can be a time-consuming process.

Finally, I'm ready to start the batter. Start with two sticks of softened butter.

Next, I use butter flavored Crisco. It really adds to the buttery flavor of the cake.

Then, I gradually mix in the sugar, a little at a time.

The main thing that attracted me to this recipe years ago was the fact that it only needed five eggs. That's all I had in the refrigerator at the time. It was a wonderful discovery.

Add the eggs one at a time.

The batter will be nice and fluffy and pale yellow.

Time to add the flour and milk. I start by adding one cup of flour and blending well. Then, I add a half cup of milk and blend well. I repeat the process one more time. Finally, I add the last cup of flour.

Adding the milk.

I add the vanilla before I got to the end because I wanted it to be completely blended into the batter.

Is that pretty or what?

This baby doesn't pour into the pan. You'll have to scoop it into the pan.

Smooth the top down and bake for 1-1/2 hours at 325. Again, I turned the heat down to 300 after one hour just so the crust wouldn't get overbaked. So, it's one hour at 325 and a half hour at 300 degrees. My oven tends to overcook the bottom if I don't make this adjustment. Please adjust baking time for your own oven.

Beautiful!

Here's another little hint: Before flipping out the cake on to a plate, go around the outside edge with the back of a butter knife or a spatula. Be careful not to cut the sides of the cake.

See! Easy as pie...or cake.

This cake doesn't need any adornment. It will have plenty of adoration though!

Enjoy!!

If you like pound cake, check out these other recipes:
Strawberry Swirl Cream Cheese Pound Cake
Chocolate Pound Cake