I thought it would be time for another cake recipe. If you leave out the lemon & poppy seeds you’ll get a regular pound cake, so this is a versatile recipe. In fact, if you just make the regular pound cake and melt some chocolate, or take some cocoa powder and add it at the end you can easily turn this recipe into a chocolate cake as well. The basics of this recipe have been given before in my Chocolate Glazed Chocolate Cake recipe. The only different is that this is make in a rectangular cake tin, as opposed to a round one.
Here’s the recipe for the regular pound cake (200 grams):
200 grams unsalted butter at room temperature (Dutch: margarine)
200 grams of regular sugar
1 sachet of vanilla sugar (you can substitute this for vanilla extract or fresh vanilla)
4 eggs
200 grams of self-raising flour
If you want to make a smaller cake you can turn the 200 grams into 150 and 4 eggs into 3. The preparation and cooking time remains the same.
For lemon/poppy seed cake add:
juice of one lemon
zest of one lemon
3 tablespoons of poppy seeds (or more if you like)
For chocolate cake add:
150 grams melted chocolate or 1/3 cup cocoa powder
Note that melted chocolate will gave a different texture and flavor to a chocolate cake than cocoa powder. The melted chocolate will give you rich and moist cake whereas the cocoa powder will keep the cake light and fluffy.
Preparation:
- Grease a rectangular cake tin with a bit of butter and dust the tin with breadcrumbs against sticking
- Preheat the oven at 150 degrees Celcius (302F)
- Using a mixer, stir the butter in a large bowl until it is soft
- Add the sugar & vanilla sugar and beat until the mixture until it’s of a creamy consistency
- Add the eggs to the mixture, one by one. (Tip: first open the egg in a separate cup, if it’s a bad egg it won’t mess up your batter)
- Do not egg the next egg until the previous one is completely incorporated into the mixture
- Beat the mixture until it’s light and fluffy
- Using a siff, add the self-raising flour. (Tip: if you use a spoon, it’s quicker and more effective)
- Beat until the batter is smooth
- Now your better is done. If you want to make a different type of cake, you now add either the lemon juice, lemon zest and poppy seeds, or you add the chocolate.
- Mix well
- Pour the batter into the cake tin
- Bake the cake on the lower rack of the oven in 1 hour & 15 minutes
- Put on a rack & let the cake cool for 10 minutes
- Transfer the cake to a cutting board by turn the cake tin over and letting the cake slide out of the tin.
- Let it cool further.
Tip: if you want to be sure your cake is ready, you can insert a toothpick to the center of the cake. If the toothpick comes out clean your cake is ready.
Enjoy!