Pound Cake // Dining with Jane Austin and Martha Lloyd

Let’s talk about pound cake. It is probably one of the most well known cakes you can bake. If you were to search for a pound cake recipe, you will notice it is usually baked in a bread or bundt cake tins and the base ingredient variations are endless, not to mention the flavour combinations. However in it’s most simplest form a pound cake is nothing more than equal proportions of butter, sugar, eggs and flour. That is it. The French call it quatre-quarts, meaning four quarters, referring to each ingredient being an equal amount. British pound cake traditionally is made with, as you might have guessed it, a pound of butter, sugar and flour.

The earliest recipe for a pound cake I managed to find comes from Richard Bradleys cookbook The Country Housewife and Lady's Director, published 1736.

The next recipe I choose to bake from Marthas book of receipts is for a pound cake. I decided to narrow my research between 18th – mid 19th centuries. To be precise from 1736, which is the oldest recipe I found, to 1845, the year Martha Lloyd died. The oldest pound cake recipe comes from Richard Bradley cookbook The Country Housewife and Lady's Director, published 1736, and it is quite different from the rest. While the main ingredients (butter, sugar and flour) were a pound each, his method was different. He whisked eggs with sugar first, then added melted butter and lastly folded in the flour. Essentially what he describes is what we would call genoise sponge, or at least the method of making one.

This is by far the most popular pound cake recipe. Out of 23 recipes I looked at 10 were like the one above. This one comes from Mary Cole cookbook The Lady's Complete Guide, published 1788. She also quite unusually included references where to find this recipe in other people cookbooks.

Most recipes though used the more common method of creaming the butter until it is light and creamy, before adding the rest of the ingredients. It was often recommended to do it for an hour by hand, quiet literally. If done correctly, judging by some the comments I found on the internet, while still dense, the cake would also melt in your mouth. I opted to use my KitchenAid because I am a little lazy.

Butter after being whipped for 15 minutes on a medium high speed

The reason why it is important to whip the butter for a long period of time is to incorporate as much air as possible. Air was the only leavening for the cake. In Marthas time there wasn’t any baking powder as we know it. Only in the last few years of her life did the first single acting baking powder appear. For most pound cake recipes I found air was the only source of leavening. However if you wanted to have a slightly lighter cake you could have also whipped the eggs with sugar until you would get a good ribbon. Then you would mix the butter and eggs until combined and lastly the flour was added.

I had never baked a traditional pound cake without baking powder before and was curious about the difference. So I made two pound cakes – one with the eggs whipped to an approximately 3 – 4 second ribbon and another where eggs were just added to creamed butter. The results were very different. The former while still dense was lighter and taller. It reminded me of my childhood. The kind of cake you would have with tea when visiting your grandmother. The latter was dense but edible. Full disclosure I accidentally underbaked it little, but I doubt that there would had been much of an improvement. The cake you see in the photograph is actually my third bake. I really made sure that the eggs were whipped properly and folded them gently with the butter, a quarter at the time. It was the lightest of the three and to be honest I didn’t miss the baking powder at all. No competition to the dense cake I started with.

When it came to flavouring the cake, there were quite a few options available to you. By far the most popular one was the caraway seeds which Martha uses in her recipe as well. However just as many cookbooks suggest to use currants instead. Lemon and orange zest (fresh or candied) and brandy were also often mentioned. Some recipes also include wine, rosewater and orange blossom water. Spice wise nutmeg was a clear winner, but cinnamon, cloves and mace also pops up from time to time.

Mary Randolphs pound cake from her cookbook The Virginia Housewife, published 1836.

Lastly judging from the cooking times the majority of recipes suggest that the cake was baked as one whole thing. Nonetheless there are a few authors who instructs to bake it into small cakes. Mary Randolph in her book The Virginia Housewife not only bakes them small but also suggests to boil the pound cake in a pudding fashion.

Martha Lloyds pound cake

225 grams flour
225 grams butter, room temperature
225 grams sugar
6 egg yolk, room temperature
3 egg whites, room temperature
2 tsp carraway seeds

Preheat the oven 160°C (fan). Butter and flour a Ø20 cm spring cake pan.

Cream the butter until very light and fluffy. I whipped it with a stand mixer for 15 minutes on medium high speed, scrapping every 5 minutes. At the same time whip the eggs with sugar over a bain-marie until you can lift the whip and the eggs leave behind a ribbon on the surface for a 3-4 second before melting back into the mass. Gently fold in the eggs into the butter, a quarter at a time. Lastly mix in the flour and carraway seeds until just combined. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for around 30 minutes or until done. Let is cool down in the tin before taking it out and cutting.

P.S. I choose to half the ingredients, in hopes not to start resembling a walking pound cake myself. However if you have lots of people to feed, feel free to bake the original quantity, just double the amount and make sure to adjust the baking time. I also cut back on the carraway seeds to honour my boyfriends sensibilities. He is not very partial of them. Martha used about double that.

Sources

Bradley, Richard, The Country Housewife and Lady's Director, 1736
Cole, Mary, The Lady's Complete Guide, 1788
Davidson, Alan, The Oxford Companion to Food, Oxford University Press, 3rd Edition, 2014
Hickman, Peggy, A Jane Austen Household Book with Martha Lloyd’s Recipes, Readers Union, Group of Book Clubs, 1978
Randolph, Mary, The Virginia Housewife, 1836