Condensed Milk Pound Cake

Terri from A Daily Obsession asked if I have pound cake recipe to share. One that yields an evenly densed but light cake. Sad to say, I do not make pound cakes that often. To be honest,I only have 1 or 2 butter cake recipes. Guess I am more obsessed with Chiffon Cakes and Sponge Cakes. Ahahah.. I recalled Yuri mentioned about making a Condensed Milk Pound Cake. That's interesting! It was on my to-do list but I got distracted with other stuffs along the way. Taking this opportunity, I hopped to Simply Anne's blog for the recipe. Looking at the picture of her cake made me realised 1 thing. My photography sucks! Big Time too! I used IH's handphone to take the pics after my phone went dead. I left my charger in the office AGAIN! I don't know why the pictures taken with his phone look so horrid. I thought those using my phone were bad enough. I also did a mistake. I overturned the cake onto the cooling grid. Why would I want to do that???! Am I not supposed to have that nice looking split top?

Anyway, no point mourning moaning about it. Like our PM said about the MAS escape, WKS and COI report; move on. Duh. Pound cakes got their name due to the amount of ingredients used. 1 pound of flour, 1 pound of eggs, 1 pound of sugar and 1 pound of butter. This will yield 4 loaves of cakes which is 1 pound each. That is also why the French called it quatre-quarts. In those early days, eggs are used as the only leavening agent in cake baking. However, as time progressed, we have baking powder, baking soda to help to achieve a fluffier effect. It is also right to say that Pound Cake is the mother of Butter Cake.

One thing caught my eye about this recipe is the ease of making it. The previous butter cake recipe I tried calls for egg separation method for its fluffy texture. And usually, after creaming the butter and sugar, the next in line will be the eggs. This recipe however, called for the eggs to be added last. For this recipe, all you need is a electric whisk, a bowl and a spatula for the mixing stage. I reduced the original recipe to 2/3 as my loaf pan is only 8 x 3-1/2 inch. I followed the suggested brand of butter (Lurpak) but reduced it after converting the recipe to metric. I also used my small toaster oven to bake this. There you go, a fool-proof recipe. Thanks Anne for sharing~ And Terri, it's your turn now. Hee~

Condensed Milk Pound Cake
Ingredients
120g Butter (good quality butter)
55g Sugar
1/4 Tsp Salt
1-1/2 Tsp Vanilla Essence
1/2 Cup Condensed Milk

120g Cake Flour
3/4 Tsp Baking Powder

*Sift together

2 Eggs

Method
1) Grease a 8 x 3-1/2 inch loaf pan and preheat oven to 170 deg.C.

2) In a bowl, using an electric whisk, cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add in salt, vanilla essence and condensed milk, whisk till incorporated.

3) Stop to add flour. I roughly used the whisk to mix and dampen the flour before turning back on (you don't want the flour to fluff up), whisk using low speed. Scrap down the sides and whisk till the batter is smooth and not lumpy.

4) Add in the eggs, 1 at a time, whisk well. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake at 170 deg.C for 1 hour.

*Note : After converting, the butter to be used is 150g to 110g of flour. I made the adjustment as I feel that I might get a butter overdose if I add that much. Also, the original recipe called for roughly 67g of sugar, I reduced t0 55g to cater to my family's taste.

**Note : I would suggest lining the pan instead of greasing it. So when the cake is done, you can just grab the lining paper and pull the cake out instead of leaving it to cool in the pan or overturn it onto the cooling grid.

***Note : Milk is added to pound cakes or butter cakes to give them a moist texture.

I love this cake! It has a rich condensed milk taste and smell. It's moist, light and rich at the same time. Definitely a keeper! My helper said it taste just like the Sara Lee's Pound Cake, if not, better. Hmm.. It has been some time since I had Sara Lee's Pound Cake, should I go get 1 to try out? On second thought, I will probably bake this again tonight. There is only 1 piece left in the container this morning. My bet is it will be gone by the time I get home.

それじゃ～～