Baking Basics: Marble Pound Cake

Add this marble pound cake recipe to your collection of must-bakes! Buttery loaf of simple pound cake with soft, velvety crumbs. Enjoy a slice for your afternoon break or breakfast, with a cup of strong coffee or tea.

 

 

Do pound cakes hold a place in your favorite cake recipe collection?

I grew up with Sara Lee cakes and old-school bakery butter cakes, so I really enjoy these buttery, dense cakes. On the other hand, I also understand that people these days prefer soft and fluffy chiffon cakes for their tea time treat or breakfast.

So, if you love buttery pound cakes like me, you might enjoy this loaf of dense marble pound cake!

 

 

What Makes A Pound Cake?

Pound cakes are quite easy to start baking with! Traditional pound cakes use a 1:1:1:1 ratio for flour, sugar, eggs and butter. This usually yields a rich and buttery loaf of cake with dense crumbs.

In this recipe, I’ve included some baking powder for an extra lift. Milk is also added to yield a softer, velvety loaf of pound cake.

Like most pound or butter cakes, I’ll recommend to serve this 1 day after baking, so that the flavor develops better, for a yummier cake!

 

 

What Ingredients Do I Need To Make This Marble Pound Cake?

 

• Unsalted Butter: For butter cakes, I like to use French butter so it doesn’t have the greasy taste. Use room temperature butter.
• Caster Sugar
• Eggs: Use 55g – 60g eggs.
• Cake or Top Flour
• Salt
• Baking Powder
• Whole Milk: Use fresh or UHT milk that states full cream and not the skimmed / low fat ones.
• Vanilla Extract
• Cocoa Powder

 

Pound Cake Success Tip #1: Softened Butter

It is important to use softened butter at room temperature for this recipe. Be careful to not let the butter get overly softened or melted!

For our sunny weather in Singapore, it probably takes about 10 – 15 mins to soften the butter adequately.

How would you know if the butter has softened properly? Use the finger test!

Press lightly into the butter, which should still feel slightly cool to touch, and your finger would leave a light indentation on the butter. You should also feel that the butter is still a little firm, with some “resistance” against your finger. If the butter gives way easily, then it might be too soft.

Read this baking basic on room temperature butter for more details!

 

Pound Cake Success Tip #2: Beating & Mixing

To get a loaf of rich but fluffy pound cake, make sure you take some time to cream the butter and sugar well.

We will cream the butter till it is light and fluffy. Butter in its original form will look yellowish; the butter mixture should look pale in color after beating. This creaming process incorporates air into the batter and gives the cake its fluffiness.

After creaming the butter, we will be adding eggs one by one. Make sure that you mix each egg in the mixture properly before adding the next. This avoids curdling and will give a finer texture to the baked pound cake.

Once eggs are all added in, we will fold in sifted flour and milk/vanilla alternately. Fold till just combined. My personal preference after folding in the flour and liquids, I will beat through the batter with the electric mixer to get rid of any remaining lumps. You should get a fairly smooth batter that looks like mayonnaise’s texture.

Then, drop dollops of alternating vanilla and chocolate batter into the pan. Lastly, swirl through the batter with a knife for some swirly patterns in the cake.

 

>> MORE CAKE RECIPES:

• Lemon Cranberries Yogurt Loaf Cake
• Cranberries Apricot Loaf Cake
• Pumpkin Swirl Butter Cake

 

Pound Cake Success Tip #3: Do Not Over-Bake

Baking time stated in the recipe serves as a guidance only. If you are using similar loaf pan as mine, the baking time should be about the same. It would also depends on your oven temperature – so it is always helpful to have an oven thermometer in the oven to ensure it is at the right temperature.

If you are using a smaller but deeper, or bigger loaf pan, you may need to add on baking time, till the skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

P.S.: Read this Top 7 Basic Baking Tips  for more info.

 

 

How Can I Store The Pound Cake?

Like most butter based cakes, I find the taste and texture of this cake to be better on the next day. I usually keep the cake wrapped in cling wrap, placed in a container in room temperature for up to 2-3 days. Pound cakes should be able to store well till 5 days at normal room temperature, however the cake never last beyond 3 days for me (haha!), so I have not gotten to test it.

 

 

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