Pound Cake

Ingredients

• 1 lb butter, softened
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 eggs
• 4 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• butter, for greasing the pan
• flour, for dusting the pan

Directions

1. 1

   Preheat the oven to 350.

2. 2

   Butter and flour the bottom and sides of a 10-inch tube pan or a bundt pan.

3. 3

   In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until they are light and fluffy.

4. 4

   Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Set aside.

5. 5

   Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl.

6. 6

   Mix the milk together with the vanilla in another separate bowl.

7. 7

   Add the flour mixture and milk mixture to the creamed butter/sugar alternating dry and wet. Start and end with dry. Do not overmix. Mix by hand, just enough to blend.

8. 8

   Spread the batter into the prepared pan. Bake 50 to 60 minutes, or until a sharp knife inserted all the way down comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a plate.

9. 9

   Allow to cool completely before slicing. If desired, dust with sifted powdered sugar, or drizzel with a glaze made from powdered sugar and milk or water.

10. 10

    Variations follow. The above is the plain poundcake recipe. Below is lemon poundcake, blueberry poundcake, or mocha-swirl poundcake.

11. 11

    Lemon Poundcake: replace the vanilla above with lemon extract. Also add 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice and 1 tsp freshly grated lemon zest.

12. 12

    Blueberry poundcake: Make the Lemon Poundcake variation above and gently fold in 2 cups of fresh blueberries with the last addition of dry ingredients.

13. 13

    Mocha-Swirl poundcake: Replace milk in the standard recipe with 1 cup strong black coffee. After mixing up the batter, take about 1/3 of the batter and add 1 oz of melted, unsweetened chocolate (1 square). Spread the plain batter into the pan. Spoon the chocolate batter on top in clumps and then use a knife to swirl the dark and light batters together.