A Pound of Each!

Do you know how “pound cake” got its name?

If you’ve never had a pound cake, it’s essentially a very sweet, heavy, and rich cake from a recipe that’s been passed down through generations. But where did it start? The original recipe called for one pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. That’s right — no yeast, no baking powder or soda, no leaveners. The simplicity of the recipe may explain why it has stuck around through the years; pound cake was invented in the 1700s, an era with low literacy, so knowing all you needed was a pound of each ingredient made it a snap to remember and make. As you can imagine, with such big portions of each ingredient, a finished pound cake was large and meant to serve multiple families. Over time, the recipe was adapted and altered to make a lighter, smaller cake, but the name stuck around, as did the core four ingredients.

Thank you, “What’s Cooking America” for this fun info!

Maybe it’s time to make a pound cake. There is, after all, nothing much better!