cold oven pound cake.

Sometimes you want a light and fluffy cake. Sometimes you want a cake so dense and heavy it sits in your satisfied stomach like a brick. Brick. Cake. Sounds like pound cake to me.

I definitely think pound cakes should have a compact crumb and melt in your mouth texture. Airy pound cakes? Go make yourself a yellow cake, seriously.

I thought a cold oven pound cake would be a good way to make myself a pound heavier. It makes sense- how starting of a cake in a non-preheated oven would result in a denser cake. Remember those times you made muffins at a lower temperature than specified? I betcha got flat wide tops instead of mini mountains.

So la la la la la... I was mixing up my batter and I realized that it was really loose for a pound cake. Did I mess up the quantity of ingredients? Nope, I was positively sure. In the end, I sent my cake batter into the oven, seriously doubtful.

Let's fast forward 16 hours later. I let my cake cool and stand overnight, wrapped tightly, because this sort of cake usually benefits from some resting. But I couldn't help unwrapping it from time to time just to inhale the buttery aroma. Ooh...

I sliced the cake, and I was right. The crumb wasn't as fine as a really good pound cake. The bottom was compact but the top was airy and holey. I'm sorry America's Test Kitchen, but this recipe still needs some tweaking. But still, it was still good sliced and grilled. I highly highly recommend you try the cake this way!

Cold Oven Pound Cake
adapted from America's Test Kitchen

3 cups cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup whole milk
2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 1/2 cups sugar
6 large eggs, room temperature

Place an oven rack in a the lower third of the oven. Grease and flour a 16 cup bundt pan.

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in medium bowl. In another small bowl, whisk the milk and vanilla together.

Beat the butter and sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 to 6 minutes. Beat in the eggs 1 at a time until well combined. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture, followed by 1/2 of the milk mixture. Repeat with half of the remaining flour mixture and the remaining milk mixture. Beat in the remaining flour mixture until just combined.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Place the pan in the oven and heat the oven to 325F and bake the cake until a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 70 to 80 minutes. Rotate the pan halfway through baking.

Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes before unmolding the cake onto a wire rack. Let it cool completely, about 2 hours, before serving.