Vanilla Pound Cake is my favorite pound cake. Today I will be sharing my favorite Nigerian style vanilla pound cake. It’s a great day today isn’t it lol. Cakes make a difference and its all about pound cakes today. What is a pound cake? A pound cake is so called because the original recipe which probably dates back to the 18th century calls for a pound each of four ingredients used for the cake which are butter, sugar, flour and eggs.Any recipe that calls for equal amounts of of these ingredients by weight is a pound cake regardless of if it’s a pound each.
I remember my mom baking while I was growing up but she had stopped baking by the time I got really interested in baking.A very funny thing happened the first time I decided to bake myself. I knew pound cakes were equal weights of these 4 ingredients so I measured them out and started the baking process.
When I had mixed in all my ingredients I felt the mixture wasn’t thick enough because in my mind’s eye I thought the mixture was to be very thick for it to have the structure of a cake after baking.I continued adding flour until I was satisfied which resulted in a very very dense cake ??????Tasty but too dense. We still enjoyed it.
After that I went on a quest to make sure I didn’t make such a cake again. Haba na cakes are to be light and fluffy ???.
The recipe I am about to share with you is a result of my research and trials over the years. It gives a fluffy yummy pound cake. This recipe never dissapoints.
In fact this is so good that my friends back in medical school still ask for the recipe to share with their families today.I got a recent request from one of them over the holidays which prompted me to make a blog post of it to get her to come visit the blog??
With this recipe, you can go ahead and bake up some love. If you try this recipe consider rating it and sharing your thoughts below. You can Tag @mydiasporakitchen on Instagram, would love to see your awesome creations. If you haven’t already, please subscribe and share. Enjoy!!!
Chichi?
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Nigerian Pound Cake
Ingredients
- 500 g butter /margarine
- 400 g- 450g granulated sugar*
- 480 g of all purpose flour
- 10 Large eggs
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2-1/2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp ground nutmeg optional
Instructions
Step 1:
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF/180ºC
- Measure out all your ingredients.
- Sieve the flour, baking powder and nutmeg into a bowl and set aside.
- Crack the eggs and beat them, then add your pure vanilla extract to the beaten eggs
- Prepare your pans with baking spray or by greasing with butter/ shortening and flouring them or you use home made goop
Step 2:
- In a Stand mixer with the paddle attachment, mix the butter and sugar for about 5 mins till it becomes fluffy and lighter in color. See picture below for how the appearance progresses to fluffy
- Add your beaten eggs and the flour in three parts alternating the eggs and flour starting with the eggs and ending with the flour. (Which means you add a third of the eggs, mix then you add a third of the flour mix again until the flour is just incorporated.** Continue in this pattern till you have mixed in all the beaten eggs and flour)
- When you have mixed in all the eggs and flour then mix up the batter for another minute and it is ready. (The batter should drop from your spoon when lifted up but not runny.)
Step 3:
- Pour into prepared pans and bake in the middle rack of your oven at 350*F for about 45 - 50 minutes or until you insert a toothpick and it comes out clean.
- When this yummy creation is ready, bring it out of the oven, allow to cool in the pan for about 5 mins then place on a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Enjoy plain with warm milk, hot chocolate, ice cream and berries or caramel topping. Your options are endless
Notes
- Food scale
- Stand mixer or hand mixer. ( you can still bake without these but it's more stressful)
- 3 loaf pans or 1 round 8" pan + 1 loaf pan
- An oven
- It is best to Preheat your oven at the right time which is as stated above just before you start measuring out your ingredients.
- When you put the cake in the oven DO NOT open the oven before 30mins. In fact it is best not to open the oven at all until close to the end of its baking time say 40mins.
- Start checking for doneness at least 10mins before the stated time. First thing you should do before pricking it with a tooth pick is to touch the top with your fingers and press it lightly if it bounces back then it is done. You can now double check by inserting the tooth pick or skewer.
- when mixing in the flour, mix until just incorporated means * * until the flour mixes in not necessarily completely don't over mix because it will develop the gluten in the flour which results in a tough dense chewy texture which is not what we a looking for in a yummy fluffy cake is it?? gluten is good for breads and maybe cookies but not cakes.
Nutrition
Please can I make this recipe into cupcakes, also how many minutes do I bake the cupcakes, I don’t have an oven tho
Lovely and easy to follow recipe. I wish I could share a picture. Thanks a lot
Hi Ruby,
Thank you for letting me know. Happy you enjoyed it. You can share your picture with me on Instagram by tagging @mydiasporaitchen. I would love to see your beautiful creations. Merry Christmas! Stay safe!
– Chichi
PS: Pleaae subscribe to my YouTube channel below it’s free. Thank you.
https://www.YouTube.com/c/mydiasporakitchen
Wow it came out real good
Hi Linda,
Happy it did 😊. Thanks for letting me know.
– Chichi
just tried this. super delicious. unfortunately i didnt have a hand mixer so i had to mix the old fashioned way lol i now know how badly i need one. one thing though is that i think the butter was a bit too much, it was oily when biting into the cake. next time ill try less butter. everything else was good.
Hi Dupe,
For the life of me I don’t know how I missed this comment. I know it takes time and effort to drop a comment, therefore I make it a point of duty to reply to all my readers’ comments as it’s an honor to have you comment on the blog. Thanks for trying the recipe. Now to your question about the butter, I have made this recipe several times and it always comes out the same and I haven’t experienced it being oily. also I haven’t had a reader who has tried the recipe mention same experience. I would think the problem may come from the mixing. You need to mix the butter and sugar well to incorporate air and this also helps the batter double in volume. I would suggest you invest in a hand mixer and try again. I would love to know how you fared with the hand mixer. I assure you that if you use the exact measurements here, you will achieve the same result. I must commend you for trying the recipe without a hand mixer. Thumbs up!!
*JUST in case you want to purchase the hand mixer, here is a link to get a good one. this is actually the brand I have but you can buy any one you like.
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