Pound Cake Showdown!

As you can see from Kameran's post, we were all quite intrigued by the pound cake feature in this month's Martha Stewart Living. It was my turn to make pound cakes and since the article featured at least 8 different variations, I thought I'd try as many variations as I had ingredients for. I made the standard recipe for comparison, which can be found here. The recipe makes 2 standard loaves, so I decided to try four different variations. There was some math involved.

Since I only have one loaf pan, I baked the cakes in a muffin tin. I was worried they would dry out, but I watched the time carefully. It took about 15-20 minutes, depending on which variation. The variations with "stuff" added in (i.e. blueberries, raisins) took longer. The standard recipe made a total of 24 muffins, or 6 of each of the different variations. Perfect for sampling!

Classic Pound Cake



Nothing to say about this. Classic pound cake taste and not dry. I served this with a candied kumquat syrup I had in the fridge. Mmmm.

Blueberry Sour Cream



Very moist from the addition of sour cream. This was probably my favorite, but I also love blueberries. I did not make the lemon cream and didn't think it needed it.

Brown Sugar Walnut

Substitute brown sugar in place of white sugar. Fold in 2 cups toasted walnuts into batter before baking. (for 2 loaf recipe)



I think I baked this slightly too long. I had these in with the cinnamon raisin ones, which needed more time. Still tasty. It would taste even better with the maple syrup peach glaze outlined in the article, but I was lazy and didn't make it.

Cinnamon Raisin

Toss 2 cups raisins with 2 tablespoons flour, then fold into batter. Divide batter in half. In one half, mix 2 tablespoons cinnamon. Alternate adding scoops of each batter, then swirl with knife.



Yum!

Still waiting for the verdict on which one is the winner...