Perfecting the Gluten Free Pound Cake

Richard Phillips b.1962
Horizontal Blonde, 1996
Oil on Canvas, 59″ x 83″
Collection of Howard Rachofsky
American, New York Based Painter

The Pound Cake. At once so familiar yet so confoundedly elusive in the world of gluten free baking. I’ve never seen it available at any gluten free bakeries, or in any freezer sections at the grocery store. So my real question is: Why is it so difficult? It took me four days, seven attempts and $65.00 worth of butter before I could consider my creation a success. But once I got my recipe down, the difficulty transformed itself into felicity, simplicity and ease. I concluded that the recipe became easy because I kept my approach very basic. For my pound cake I had to have three basic components fulfilled to satisfy my requirements: taste, texture and appearance. After these needs were met, the rest was cake.

This was pound cake #2. After sitting for five minutes, it completely collapsed.

In terms of a pound cake, it had to be both dense and light without the least bit of a grainy texture, which is an overwhelming problem in gluten free baking, and the flavor had to be all about the butter with a touch of lemon. Some prefer their pound cake without the lemon, but nostalgia took the upper hand in this particular instance. My mom always made her pound cake with lemon and since my diagnosis with Celiac disease six years ago, I haven’t had a slice of pound cake, so it’s the only way I know how to taste it.

The pound cake originally got its name based on the quantities of the ingredients used: a pound of butter, a pound of sugar and a pound of flour. For this reason, the quality of the ingredients is extremely important. If the key ingredients are butter, sugar and flour, which ones are the best? The sugar and flour are no-brainers. But the butter? Which is considered the best? After a little research and experimentation, the results I came up with are as follows: you want to use a butter that is cultured and that has an above average fat content. Most French butters fulfill these criteria, like Celles sur Belles and Echire. The Irish butter known as Kerry Gold can also be used.

When I was cooking in France with my husband, Tim in the summer of 2006, our dear friend Cindy Price, always had a stock of Echire in her cave (an area in her chateau that was once used for wine storage) to offer her bed and breakfast guests. And since that was what was in stock, it was what I used all summer long. Echire is a deceptively light, with an equally delicate, subtle flavor that just makes anything it touches sing. When we first got back, I scouted out all the nearby grocery stores for this bakers gold but alas, it was to no avail. Then I got on this pound cake kick and again I resumed my search and low and behold, there it was, residing amongst a sudden outcropping of fine French butters. I literally let out a noise that I simply cannot describe to you except to say that the person standing next to me gave me a sideways glance that included a slight eye roll. I suddenly felt freakish and glanced around to make sure there weren’t any children about. Whew. I couldn’t help it, though, Iwas so ecstatic I bought every last one that they had, which was only four containers, but definitely better than one. So I had my ingredients, all I needed was a recipe…

Pound cake perspective…

Perhaps the most important piece of advice I can impart about preparing this or any pound cake is the way in which you treat these beautiful ingredients that you have gone near and far to acquire. You absolutely want all of your ingredients to be at room temperature before you begin, and I assure you, the difference is between a successful pound cake and a failure. Amazingly, this recipe only requires ½ a teaspoon of baking powder. The rest of the rising occurs because of the eggs.

So if you don’t feel discouraged, all I can say is that this is a fine example of what a real pound cake should taste, look and feel like as you bring this sweet bread to your lips and say yes to the butter, yes to the hint of lemon and yes to the pleasure of everything turning out just so.

Giorgio de Chirico (Italian, born in Greece, 1888-1978)
The Soothsayer’s Recompense, 1913
Oil on Canvas, 53 3/8 x 70 7/8″
The Louis and Walter Arensberg Collection
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Italian Metaphysical Painter