The Best Million Dollar Pound Cake Recipe - Miss in the Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

What makes a pound cake fall? ›

Mistake: Not Measuring Accurately

Spoon flour into the cups and lightly level with the straight edge of a small offset spatula or knife. Extra sugar or leavening causes a cake to fall; extra flour makes it dry.

After you've removed the cake from the oven, set it on a wire rack and let it cool in the pan for 20 minutes. A screaming-hot cake is too delicate to be removed from the pan.

The recipe comes from an old lady who was a dear friend of Elvis. She made this cake for him every Christmas and on special occasions. She made the paper promise to keep her name anonymous for fear that people would deluge her Tupelo Mississippi home with requests by fans to make her cakes for them."

You can make sure you're baking at the right temperature and not under- or over-baking the cake. If the cake isn't sufficiently cooked it may be too moist on the bottom, which can prevent it from releasing. If it's overcooked, it may start to burn or at least really stick to the pan.

Grease your pan with shortening and dust with flour

The best tip Catherine could give any Bundt baker is to grease the pan with shortening and dust with flour—no butter here! “You don't want to use butter here. The milk solids in it can cause the cake to stick when it bakes,” Catherine advises.

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.

Overmixing and its consequences

You see, pound cake is already a naturally dense bake if you don't over-mix the batter, but if you do end up over-mixing it, you are going to make one heavy brick of a cake that doesn't have an appealing texture (via Southern Living).

Use cake flour in recipes where you want an extra-light, extra-fluffy texture, like Angel Food Cake, Cream Cheese Pound Cake, or Buttermilk-Chocolate Cake. You can also use cake flour to bring a more tender crumb to other sweets, like Chocolate Crinkle Cookies.

In many cultures, there are foods that are customarily served after a funeral. The funeral cakes that were traditional in some denominations in this country, mostly Protestant, were often meant not only to provide refreshment for mourners, but also to be a token of remembrance.

The settlers took it all over the islands of the Caribbean, and after several linguistic and cultural modifications, it became also just as well-known under the name of Johnny cake. Historians also believe that “janiken”, a Native American word meaning “corn bread” could also be at the root of this cake.

What is Elvis Presley's favorite dessert? ›

Elvis favored classic southern sweets for dessert, and one favorite happened to be pound cake. Not just any pound cake but a particular one. The Sterns say pound cake for Elvis meant a cake baked by his childhood friend, Janelle McComb.

Bundt pans are a baking essential. Their unique construction allows an even browning on denser cakes, like pound cake, with the well-defined curves that are the hallmark of the form. Bundts now come in the shape of rosettes, castles, and even pine forests.

Grease cake pans with solid vegetable shortening, such as Crisco.

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.

The butter and sugar were creamed too fast and too much! The cake rises, and then collapses while cooling, causing the cake to have dense, gummy (or gluey) spots.

Cake sinking after baking can be prevented by ensuring the oven is preheated correctly, using the right size of baking tin, avoiding opening the oven door too early, checking for doneness with a toothpick, and allowing the cake to cool gradually in the oven before removing it.

My grandmother had an easy fix that actually saved the cake for me when I encountered the same problem at about age 12. She put a tea saucer upside down on the cake plate and put the fallen cake upside down on that so the saucer filled the cavity.

When cakes are over-leavened, cakes can rise too quickly and then fall. The best way to ensure cakes get the perfect amount of leavening is to measure them out accurately, according to your recipe. Also if you are using older baking powder or baking soda it may not be active any more.