Pound Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup (6 3/4 oz/205 g) all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup (6 oz/185 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing
• 1 cup (7 oz/220 g) sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup (4 oz/125 g) sour cream, at room temperature

Directions:

Gather ingredients.

Preheat the oven to 325F (165C).

Lightly grease a 8 1/2-by-4 1/2-inch (21.5-by-11.5-cm) loaf pan and dust with flour. my pan was a little bit bigger than it should have been, but it still came out perfect.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt until blended. In another bowl, using a mixer on medium to medium high speed, beat together the butter, sugar, vanilla, and almond extract (if using) until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, until just blended. Sprinkle half the of the flour over the egg mixture and stir until both are just incorporated. Stir in the sour cream, then sprinkle with the remaining flour mixture and stir until evenly distributed. The flour tends to get everywhere if you turn up the mixture so I recommend scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, while its on medium-low speed. 

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and tap gently on the counter to even out and settle the ingredients. You only have to tap it a few times, just to get out any air bubbles inside of the mixture. 

Bake until a toothpick inserted to the center comes out clean, about 70 minutes, or longer if using a metal pan. let cool on rack for 15 minutes. My cake baked all the way perfectly for 70 minutes exactly. 

Run a knife around the inside of the pan. Place the cake onto a wire rack, and lift off pan. place the cake on one of it's sides and continue cooling. Serve warm or at room temperature. I usually run the knife around the pan right after it comes out of the oven and it turns out fine. 

I didn't want to serve it as just plain cake so I put strawberries and whipped cream on top of it and made strawberry shortcake. You simply cut up a bit of strawberries, put a little bit of sugar on them, then mix until the strawberries are coated with sugar, whip up some heavy whipping cream, and sugar (to taste) until it forms stiff peaks and put it on slices of the pound cake! Easy as that.

My Experience:

This was probably one of my favourite things that I have made for this blog, it was so simple and there are so many different things you could do with it. The possibilities are endless. My cake turned out really well, it was soft in the middle and it wasn't dry at all. It was good plain, but the strawberries and whipped cream really made it good! 

Enjoy! xx