Tish Boyle's Plainly Perfect Pound Cake

As you can see, I am continuing my celebration of simplicity. The inspiration to go back to Tish Boyle came about when one of the readers here tried out the Luxe Pound Cake recently and was raving about how good it was. I had baked it once and eaten it once. I remember I did a little dance when I took my first test bite.... the rest was a distant memory among the many recipes I had played with last year....  Going back to Tish Boyle's The Cake Book, I contemplated among a few different pound cake recipe. In the end, I decided to go with the most basic and the aptly named, Plainly Perfect Pound Cake. No one can have one too many basic pound cake recipe. A good pound cake is like the Vanilla ice cream of the butter cake world. Rich and buttery, this can become the basis of more lavish and tasty embellishments that take the partaking of it to new levels of savouring joy.



I love the fine crumb texture of this cake and the fact that I can smell it from a mile away when I was baking it. Instead of the traditional pound cake mould, I had deliberately chosen to bake it in a slim rectangular baking tin so that I can cut them up in tiny slices to be nibbled on like a snack - a perfect presentation for the upcoming Chinese New Year where treats are best served in small finger food sizes. If you find the Kueh Lapis too challenging and time consuming to make for the coming festival, I suggest you consider this recipe as it is easy to whip up and is ... as the name claims, Plainly Perfect!
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Plainly Perfect Pound Cake (From Tish Boyle's The Cake Book)Receipe :
200g/2 cups           Plain flour
1/4 tsp                    Baking powder
1/4 tsp                    Salt
227g/2 sticks          Unsalted butter (softened)
250g/ 1 1/4cup       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)