Does a Pound Cake Really Weigh a Pound?
Pound Cake is a British creation that dates back to the early 1700s. It is a type of cake traditionally made with a pound of each of four ingredients: flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. Wait, what?? A pound of each of those 4 ingredients? Anyway, this is how this luscious cake got its name.
No leaveners were used other than the air whipped into the batter. In the days when many people could not read, this simple cake made it easy to remember the recipe.
By the way, a cake made like this would have been very large and would have been able to serve multiple families. As the years went by, the portions of the ingredients used were adjusted to make a smaller, lighter cake. However, the name Pound Cake stuck.
It was in the 1900s when artificial leaveners such as baking powder or baking soda were added. Today, pound cakes use different proportions of the same ingredients to produce a more realistic cake. Pound cakes are generally baked in either a loaf pan or a Bundt pan. They are sometimes served either dusted with powdered sugar, lightly glazed, or with a coat of icing.
After doing some research, I learned that there were more than four ingredients in the original cake.
The earliest pound cake recipes printed are found in the first American cookbook, American Cookery in 1796. There are 2 recipes in the cookbook. One of the recipes lists the ingredients as such:
One pound sugar One pound butter One pound flour One pound of eggs (or ten eggs) One gill rose water Spices to taste
Method: Watch the cake well. It’ll bake in a slow oven for 15 minutes.
A slow oven cooks between 250°F and 325°F. In early days, cooks only had a few settings on their ovens and “slow” was the coolest setting. Also, in reality, this cake would have been very large and taken more than 15 minutes to bake and in a larger pan unless it was baked in batches but, in my research, I haven’t found anything concrete to clarify this information.
This recipe lists the main 4 ingredients but includes one gill of rose water and spices to taste.
One gill of rose water? I had to look this one up. According to Wikipedia, the "gill or teacup is a unit of measurement for volume equal to a quarter of a pint. It is no longer in common use, except in regard to the volume of alcoholic spirits measures." Rose water is exactly what it says. The process involves simmering fresh rose petals in water. Rose water is used to flavor food, drinks, baked goods, desserts as well as used in cosmetics and perfumes.
According to a New York Times article, pound cake was previously a popular dessert served during the “Twelfth Night” or Epiphany celebration. During this Christian holiday, the Twelfth Night was the last day of the festival celebrating the 12 days of Christmas when the 3 magi visited Jesus. This festival occurred during the first week of January.
Based on the article, it was an English tradition that during this celebration, “one drank mulled wine and ate pound cake.” As part of the festivities, the pound cake was incorporated into a party game. Before the game started, a pea and a bean were either baked directly into the cake or hidden in the sugar glaze on top of the cake with the bean hidden on one half of the cake and the pea in the other. Men would eat slices of cake from the bean side and women would eat from the pea side. Whichever guest found the bean would be the “king” of the party and the person who found the pea would be the “queen.”
That’s the story of Pound Cake, one of my favs. Mark your calendars. National Pound Cake Day is celebrated on March 4th. Bake a Pound Cake! It is a great starter cake although I would try a newer, more modern recipe to try for those non-bakers. Whether you make it fun by hiding a bean and pea in your cake, the great thing is that pound cake can be eaten anytime!