Cranberry Orange Pound Cake Recipe - Belly Full (2024)

FAQs

What makes a pound cake heavy? ›

Store brands of sugar are often more finely ground than name brands, yielding more sugar per cup, which can cause the cake to fall. Store brands of butter may contain more liquid fat, and flours more hard wheat, making the cake heavy.

How long do you leave pound cake in the pan? When it's done baking, let the cake sit in the pan for 10 minutes: no more, no less. It's enough time for the cake to firm up some after baking so that it doesn't fall apart, but not so much time that the cake gets stuck to the pan. Ten minutes is the sweet spot.

Be careful not to overbeat the butter-sugar mixture, especially on a hot day — you could rupture the air cells and cause the batter to be heavy.

Preheat oven to 325°F (163°C). Not 350°F. Generously grease a 10-12 cup Bundt pan with butter or nonstick spray. Using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, beat the butter on high speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes.

If the gluten is overworked, you will end up with a tougher and dense pound cake – NOT good. Another way to avoid this is to use cake flour instead of AP flour. CHEAT NOTE 1 – CAKE FLOUR can be substituted for AP flour because it'll give a lighter texture to your pound cake.

Unless otherwise noted, filling pans around 2/3 full is the best practice. This leaves room for rising. For example, my vanilla cake recipe yields around 8 cups of batter which I divide between 3 9×2 inch round cake pans.

On a standard Kitchen Aid stand mixer, this will take about 3 to 4 minutes at medium speed (a 4 on a KitchenAid stand mixer) to cream the butter and sugar. But, whip too long and things start to heat up. Once butter rises past 68°F, it begins to melt and can't easily form an emulsion with the eggs.

The oven temperature is too high. If the top crust forms and sets before the cake has finished rising, the middle will try to push through the crust as it continues to bake, causing it to crack and possibly dome.

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Look at your knife set and find the one with the thinnest blade. Then insert the blade into the center of the cake. If the knife comes out clean, the cake is done. If batter or crumbs stick to the blade, let your cake bake a few minutes more and retest with a clean knife.

When a cake is wet in the middle it is because the edges have cooked faster than the centre. This happens because of the way the cake cooks naturally in the tin – the sides of the cake tin heat up first.

Why is my pound cake not done in the middle? ›

According to Real Simple, when testing three different pound cake recipes using Amish butter, European butter, and American butter, European butter worked best due to its higher fat content, vibrant yellow hue, richness in flavor, and denseness.

An overmixed egg foam will look dull or broken, like cottage cheese. With the addition of flour, an undermixed batter will have uneven streaks or visible pockets of flour. When properly combined, the batter will be satiny, a little glossy, and able to make luscious peaks or ribbons.

You may know what you get when you overmix cake batter: a dense cake with tough texture (and maybe some unappetizing gluey streaks as well).

Another possible reason is if the cake was over-baked. This generally causes a sponge to become dry but this can then lead to it being dense and heavy. If you baked it for the recommended time it may mean that your oven is running hot and that the baking time needs to be shortened slightly next time you make it.

8. My cake is very dense. This could be because a/ the cake mixture hasn't had enough air beaten into it, b/ the eggs were added too quickly and curdled or c/ there's not enough raising agent.

Using too much liquid or fat in the recipe can also weigh down the cake, making it dense and sticky. Insufficient leavening agents, such as baking powder or baking soda, can prevent proper rising and result in a gluey texture.