Thursday: Trish Boyle's Plainly Perfect Pound Cake

You might ask, why another pound cake recipe? For me, pound cakes are perfect for any event and they feed the crowd easily. They are quick to fix, no rolling, no decorations, no frosting, and whatnot. Easy. 

I recently spent few hours on the net, looking for a pound cake recipe. My way of doing 'research' is by browsing through Pinterest, Foodgawker, online magz, and even Google Images. You see..I love feeding my eyes with appealing food photos which also give me some much needed inspirations later. Frankly, most of the recipes I tried were triggered from those delicious-looking photos.:)     

Back to the pound cake, none of the photos on the net are convincing enough for me try, not until I landed on Shirley of Kokken69's. Her beautifully captured pound cake makes me starstruck. I could see the fine texture which almost looks like a souffle..and that has brought me to bookmark her recipe and the rest is history :) Alas, my cake doesn't has the same fine texture like hers. Hmm..

The cake is moist and I love the crispy upper crust. I didn't line my baking tin since I'm out of baking sheet. :P Thus, the brown bottom layer and the messy sides. Luckily the cake came out from the tin easily. I baked this cake last night at 10PM. I fell asleep halfway through the baking time...he he and I burnt the upper crust of the cake..:P 

Sis Rima of Bisous a Toi said that the cake tastes better than Sicilian Orange Cake. Oh yeah..I had to agree with that ;) It might be the next viral!

Plainly Perfect Pound Cake 

(Adapted from Kokken69-Trish Boyle's The Cake Book)Receipe :
200g Plain flour
1/4 tsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp Salt
227g Unsalted butter (softened)
250g castor sugar (I reduced this to 200g)
4 Large eggs
1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
1 tsp grated orange zest
1 tsp vanilla extract
80ml Heavy cream

Method :
1. Preheat oven to 170C.
2. Sift flour with baking powder and salt and set aside.
3. Cream butter in a mixer at medium high speed until creamy (about 2 mins). Add sugar gradually and continue beating for 4 mins until light and fluffy.
4. Reduce the mixing speed of the mixer to low and add eggs one at a time mixing until well mixed.
5. Add the citrus zest and vanilla extract.
6. Add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating it with cream (added in 2 additions).
7. Pour into 2 lined 3"x 7" pound cake mold and bake for 60-70 mins or until the cake turns brown and a testing skewer comes out clean. (Trish Boyle had baked this at 162C but I had to use a slightly higher oven temperature to ensure that the cake is cooked through without dense uncooked spots)