Plain Pound Cake

I think everyone like this plain and easy cake, it’s good on its own or with ice cream, chocolate sauce, sweet whipped cream and etc., there are many way to enjoy it. Most people have their favorite recipe, I have mine too. This is the real simple cake that has a sweet aroma from vanilla, honey and rum, when you bake this cake the smell is very very good, if you want to get better taste go beyond the limit by use the best cultured butter that you can find. Using salted butter is great for bring out the sweet taste, but if you have only unsalted butter just add a pinch of it in the batter. Because this recipe is from a Japanese baking book, the yield is small but I find it’s good because even you can keep this cake for 5 day, the taste is not good as the fresh one. The recipe is an adaptation from “何度も試作してようやくたどりついた”ほんとうに作りやすい焼き菓子レシピ―超人気お菓子サイトたかこ@caramel milk teaさんの the author is Takako Inada, she is very famous in Japan from her websiteたかこ@caramel milk teaさんの –(Japanese language website with cute pictures of sweet and a diary of the author). I have 7 of her books (I forgot to take a picture of other one that she write with Mikasan (みかさんの手づくりパンのある楽しい食卓 (Happy Home Made (made by hand) Bread (a meal with a bread) that I wrote about in Milk square bread ). I will write about the book in the future, today let’s enjoy this fragrance pound cake together.

Plain Pound Cake

Make 18 X 8X 6 cm loaf pan

⅓ tsp	Baking powder
100 g	Cake flour
100 g	Salted butter (preferred cultured butter)
95 g	Sugar
2	Egg yolks
2	Egg whites
1 tbsp	Milk
1 tbsp	Honey
1 tbsp	Rum
1 tsp	Vanilla extract

Line the baking paper in the pan, set aside.

Preheat oven to 170°C.

Sift together flour with baking powder, set aside.

Beat together butter and half of the sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Add egg yolks 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in vanilla, milk, rum and honey.

Make the meringue by beating egg white and the rest of the sugar, beat until soft peak form.

Use a rubber spatula folding the flour mixture into the butter mixture in alternately with the meringue, stir until just blended. Pour batter into prepared pan

Place pan in the oven. Bake until golden and a wooden pick or skewer inserted in middle of cake comes out with a few crumbs adhering, about 40 minutes.