Bookmark this Better-Than-Classic Pound Cake from Deb Perelman’s latest cookbook, Smitten Kitchen Keepers

This XL pound cake is from the pages of Deb Perelman’s latest cookbook, Smitten Kitchen Keepers: New classics for your everlasting files. Since you can bake it for all occasions, we were curious about some of Perelman’s possibilities likes to enjoy it. “I like pound cakes with fresh berries and lightly sweetened whipped cream or creme fraiche,” she tells us. “A lemon glaze is never unwanted, nor is a drizzle of butterscotch sauce. Less popular but tasty use: some whipped salted butter and jam. You can even lightly toast a piece of the cake first.” Read on for more reasons why this is a keeper.

Better than classic pound cake

By Deb Perelman

I want this to be the last pound cake recipe you will ever need. It attempts to earn that crown in a number of ways: a rugged, crisp top that I have to constantly keep hands big and small from picking at bark-like patches (though I can hardly blame them). It’s buttery but not bland thanks to sour cream, vanilla, and just the right amount of salt and sugar. And it’s totally unspectacular – no separate eggs, odd measurements – oh, and you make this in one bowl because I’m too lazy to make it in two and won’t write the recipe any other way. Before you shy away from the amount of sugar or butter, please note the massive proportions here; that’s a two-and-two-thirds pound cake. I don’t make sand cakes that you have to look into the pan to see. I think pound cakes should be high and messy over the top. They should make an entrance and feed the crowd that forms around them. This one is ready for her limelight.

Ingredients

• 8 oz (1 cup or 225 g) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 1 cup (200g) plus 1 tbsp (15g) granulated sugar, divided
• ½ cup (110g) turbinado or packed light brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons (6 grams) kosher salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup (240 g) sour cream
• 1½ to 2 tsp vanilla extract (use a smaller amount if also using vanilla bean paste)
• ½ tsp vanilla bean paste (optional)
• 2 teaspoons of baking soda
• 2 cups (260 g) all-purpose flour

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F). A 6-cup loaf pan (check! see note) brush well with nonstick spray or butter and line with a loop of parchment paper stretching down the two long sides.

In a large bowl, whisk together melted butter, 1 cup granulated sugar, and all of the turbinado sugar and salt. Add the eggs one at a time. Add the sour cream, vanilla extract, and vanilla bean paste, if using, and beat until smooth. Sprinkle the baking powder over the surface of the dough and beat it much more than necessary to make it disappear; We want to make sure it’s very well distributed throughout the dough. Add the flour and stir with a spatula until just combined.

Scrape the batter into the loaf pan and drop the pan on the counter a few times to release any trapped air. Smooth the surface and sprinkle with the remaining 1 tablespoon granulated sugar.

Bake for 1 hour and 10 to 15 minutes, until a skewer inserted all over – especially the top third where raw spots like to hide – comes out dough-free. Leave to cool in the pan. Run a knife along the short sides of the cake and use the parchment “snare” to remove the cake for slicing.

Remarks

• Very important here is the size of your loaf tin because this dough will fill every spot of it before it’s done. Mine holds 6 liquid cups; It is 8 x 4 inches at the bottom and 9 x 5 inches at the top. If yours is a little smaller or you’re nervous, scoop out a little to make a mini cake muffin or two. If you’re still nervous, bake the cake on a larger pan to catch drips.

• This cake uses melted butter. No, I repeat, butter and sugar don’t soften and whip like you would for other cakes. The crumb is much less rich.

Go on

This cake is good the first day and gets better the second and third. It keeps for 5 days at room temperature. I like to keep it in its loaf pan with the top uncovered (to keep it crispy). I just press a piece of foil or plastic against the cut side.

Makes 1 loaf or 8 to 10 slices.

Out of Smitten Kitchen Keepers: New classics for your everlasting files by Deb Perelman. Copyright © 2022 by Deb Perelman. Excerpted with permission from Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without the written permission of the publisher.