Pound cake with strawberry and white chocolate
Pound cake is a type of cake traditionally made with a pound of each of four ingredients: flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. Pound cakes are generally baked in either a loaf pan or a Bundt mold. They are sometimes served either dusted with powdered sugar, lightly glazed, or with a coat of icing.It is believed that the pound cake is of northern European origin that dates back to the early 1700s. A recipe for pound cake is in the first U.S. cookbook, American Cookery, written by Amelia Simmons and published in Hartford, Connecticut in 1796. The recipe in the book was: “One pound sugar, one pound butter, one pound flour, one pound or ten eggs, rose water, spices to your taste; watch it well, it will bake in a slow oven in 15 minutes.” To a modern baker, this recipe looks funny for a few reasons. First, 15 minutes isn’t very much time to bake a whole cake, particularly one that, as Susannah Chen notes for Pop Sugar, is “something far larger than what a modern-day family would consume—an amount over twice the volume of most loaf pans.” Second, it gives measurements in pounds, not cups.Over time the ingredients for pound cake changed. Eliza Leslie, who wrote the 1851 edition of Direction for Cookery, used 10 eggs, beat them as lightly as possible, mixed them with a pound of flour, then added the juice of two lemons or three large oranges. This changed the flavor and texture of the cake.Many countries got in on the act of creating their own pound cake recipes throughout the history of pound cake. Lemon juice and chocolate are popular ingredients to vary the flavor of pound cakes. Other ingredients such as dried fruit, especially raisins and cherries are added in some countries to change the flavor and texture. The Columbians are known to drench their pound cake recipes with wine and top with cream which are famous during their celebrations.In France, the pound cake is well known. The name of the pound cake "quatre-quarts", means four quarters. There are equal weights in each of the four quarters. In tradition, the popular cake of the French region of Brittany, as its name implies, uses the same quantity of the four ingredients, but with no added fruit of any kind. However, the Caribbean parts of the world that speak French traditionally add rum to the ingredients for Christmas Eve or even mashed bananas for extra moisture. In some cases, the French might have beaten egg whites instead of whole eggs to lighten the batter. Other variants include adding chocolate or lemon juice for flavor.In Mexico, the pound cake is called panqué. The basic recipe of Mexican panqué is much like the traditional U.S. recipe. Most common variants are panqué con nueces (pound cake with walnuts) and panqué con pasas (pound cake with raisins). The German term Rührkuchen (mixed-batter cake) refers to any kind of cake where a batter is made by mixing flour, butter, eggs, sugar and often milk. The concept of the first four ingredients having equal proportions is not common, but, nevertheless, this style of cake batter forms the basis of many popular cake recipes. With the simple addition of nuts, cocoa, dried fruits and alcohols, and the use of different shapes and sizes of tins, a wide variety of traditional German cakes are made. For example, this dough or a minor variation of it is often used to make cakes made in a loaf tin (Orangenkuchen - orange cake; Nusskuchen- hazelnut cake), marbled cakes in a bundt tin (Marmorkuchen ) and other flavor combinations in shaped tins.Pound cake is really easy to make. I like to always add fresh fruits in my pound cake for some fresh taste. This pound cake came out so delicious, it didn't resist more than 2 days. I made some chocolate ganache but it's not mandatory, you can skip the ganache if you don't want your cake to be too sweet. If you try it you will like it so much, and it doesn't take much time to be done. Try it, it will win your heart.
Ingredients
- 300 g flour
- 80 g sugar
- 10 g baking soda
- a pinch of salt
- 5 eggs
- 120 ml milk
- 160 g room temperature butter
- 2 tsp lemon extract
- 450 g strawberries
- 80 g white chocolate
Instructions
- Mix the butter with sugar until you get a smooth composition. Add the eggs one by one and mix after every egg you add. Gradually add the flour, baking powder and salt and mix until the flour is well incoroporated. Gradually add the milk and mix until the composition is homogenous. At the end add the lemon extract, diced strawberries and white chocolate.
- Put everything in a tray lined with baking paper. Cook the cake in preheated oven for 40-45 minutes at 180 degrees on upper and lower heat.
Notes
