Cold oven pound cake
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Don’t we all have days when it feels as if we can’t do anything right? I know I do, but then something happens such as what happened yesterday afternoon.
A woman calls me, all the way from Oklahoma, and asks me if I can find a recipe that ran “years ago” in the Washington Post. She said the recipe, for a cold oven pound cake, was submitted by a Roanoker.
Several facts about this query did not give me much hope. When people tell me the recipe ran “years ago,” my heart usually sinks a little. And when she said it ran in the Washington Post, it sank a little lower. We don’t archive articles from other papers, and our electronic archives only go back to 1990. But I so love to find long-lost recipes, and I’ve heard of cold oven pound cakes before, so I went digging.
I didn’t have to dig long. Apparently, this is a legendary recipe. In 2000, one of my predecessors on the food beat, Nancy Gleiner, wrote about the same request from a different person in her column, Potluck Q&A. And the response was overwhelming. So many recipes came in that Nancy ended up printing the one most similar to all the others, then listing the substitutions and changes.
On the chance that one of you is looking for this recipe or would like a good new pound cake recipe, I’ll share all of that information below. Apparently, this recipe was meant to be found!
When Norine Hanson of Sacramento, Calif., wrote “Virginia cooks are some of the very best” in her letter requesting a recipe for Cold Oven Pound Cake, she probably had no idea how many people would take the time to send in their recipes. The response was amazing. All of the letters readers sent in will be forwarded to her. Many of the recipes were similar. Below are the most common ones with variations noted.
Potluck Q&A
By Nancy Gleiner
Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2000
From Anita Cauley of Hot Springs:
Cold Oven Pound Cake
2 sticks butter or margarine
1/2 cup shortening
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk
3 cups flour
Cream butter, shortening and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well. Add flavoring. Add flour and milk alternately. Pour into well-greased and floured 10-inch tube pan. Turn oven to 325 degrees after placing cake in oven. Bake 1 1/2 hours.
The following are variations on this recipe:
- Brenda Burrows of Marion uses 4 eggs and an additional teaspoon of lemon extract. She bakes the cake for 1 hour at 325 degrees, then at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
- Frances Johnson of Covington uses only Crisco for the shortening and adds 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, only 1/2 teaspoon lemon flavoring and 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla. Her recipe came from the Millboro Church Cookbook.
- The recipe from the Montgomery Museum and Lewis Mill Regional Art Center in Christiansburg was sent in by Ruth Shelor of that town. It included 2 sticks of whipped margarine in place of non-whipped and icing made with stick margarine, 1 box confectioner’s sugar and the juice and rind of 1 orange.
- Barbara Stokes of Thaxton uses only 1/4 cup of shortening and adds the eggs all at once, creaming the first four ingredients together until light and fluffy. She sifts the flour, 1/4 teaspoon baking powder and a dash of salt three times, then adds that and 1 cup of milk to the creamed mixture. The flavored extracts are added last.
- Stella Woolwine from Roanoke sent in a recipe from Montvale’s Walnut Grove Union Church’s cookbook. It included 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder. She cautioned, “Do not open the oven while the cake is baking because the cake will fall.”
- Roanoker Juanita Conner’s recipe included 1 cup margarine, 1/2 cup butter and 1 8-ounce package of cream cheese. She uses 6 eggs, rather than 5.
- Velma Goad of Salem uses 1 teaspoon almond flavoring and also sifts the dry ingredients three times. She puts waxed paper on the bottom of the tube pan and wrote, “Do NOT use baking powder or soda.” She said the cake comes out very crusty.
- Peggy Hubbard of New Castle sent in a recipe from the Church of God of Prophecy cookbook. She uses 6 eggs, a dash of salt and bakes the cake in a 300-degree oven for 1 hour and 45 minutes.
- Ann Looney of Roanoke’s recipe called for 1 2/3 cups sugar, 2 cups of flour and 1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract. The eggs are added two at a time, along with 1/2 to 1 cup of flour. “End with one egg,” she wrote, “and do not mix or beat mixture hard. Test for doneness with a straw.”
- Marlene Perrott of Roanoke sent in Sister Mary Eugenia’s Sour Cream Pound Cake, which is also placed in a cold oven. The recipe calls for 6 eggs, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder and 8 ounces of sour cream. Add eggs one at a time; add a little sour cream at a time, alternating with the flour mixture. The recipe suggests sprinkling the cooled cake with confectioner’s sugar.
- Carol Wyrick of Dublin recommended using milk, butter and eggs right out of the refrigerator.
- Margaret Atkinson of Blacksburg mentioned the cake freezes well.
If you have yet another variation or some experience with cold oven pound cakes, please chime in!
June 28, 2011 - 6:39 AM
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As I understand it, “real” pound cake uses no liquid (such as milk) other than that found in the eggs. Originally it was a pound of eggs, pound of butter, pound of flour, pound of sugar, with a bit of leavening/flavor. I also found out something recently: butter should be softened, but not overly so, if you want it to incorporate the air when you cream the butter and sugar. Very soft, mushy, butter will not hold up well enough to hold the air and you will end up a very dense cake. Thanks for the recipe(s)!
This is very similar to my grandmother’s recipe which also called for a cold oven start.
Every time I make it pound cake lovers want the recipe, of which I caution them to obey the cold oven start.
Granny also changed the extracts to nutmeg/cinnamon or coconut (her favorite). She even mentioned taking a little of the batter and putting it into a small bowl and mixing chocolate cocoa into it – and then putting it into the middle of the pan so it’s a chocolate swirl center – YUMMY!
Thanks for the great post on an old favorite!
Charlie, your grandmother sounds like a great baker!
Carol, that’s interesting info about butter. It makes sense to me. I’m bad about forgetting to set out my butter, then getting impatient and wanting to soften it in the microwave. Maybe that’s why I don’t bake as much as I cook. Haha.
Another tip I think has been mentioned on here before is that eggs should be room temperature.
I know a lot of folks who don’t eat eggs (they’re allergic, for health reasons, or concerns about animal cruelty). Here’s an awesome site that gives tips on cooking and baking without eggs: http://EggFreeLiving.com
I’ve read the same thing about butter. It should be soft enough to leave an indentation if you press on it, but still a little firm.
There is an elderly lady that bakes pound cakes for the red cross donations at the cave spring baptist church and it is so very good! I used to drive all the way there to give blood just so I could have that pound cake! I would love that recipe if anyone has it
No disrespect to Carol Wyrick, but I’ve always heard that for cakes, eggs and other ingredients should be at room temperature, except as stated previously, don’t have your butter too soft.
this recipe is in many church cookbooks as a “Baptist pound cake” – and gets rave reviews!
I was raised as a Southern Baptist, and a man (now deceased) at the church I used to attend, said one time that Baptists meet to eat, and when they meet to eat, they’re planning on where they’re going to meet and eat the next time.
One of my colleagues passes along this recipe for Elvis Presley’s favorite pound cake, which has whipping cream in the batter and calls for a cold oven start.
He said he made it and the crust was thicker and darker than that of other pound cakes he has made.
http://www.food.com/recipe/elvis-presleys-favorite-whipping-cream-pound-cake-36806
849 calories per slice. No wonder Elvis was so fat.
Thanks so much for sharing this! I had my first taste of Cold Oven Pound Cake this spring when my boss’ wife shared one with us. I had wondered how you could cook a cake in a cold oven (thinking along the lines of “forgotten cookies”, where you start with a hot oven, then turn it off)!!
Kaaps restaurant used to be in downtown Green Bay WI around 1970.
Their baker, Otto, used to make an amazing cheesecake. This was not your heavy, gooey, cheesecake.
It had the color, height, and texture of
angel food cake, with that crust. Only when you bit into it, there was the delicate taste of some kind of cheese.
Otto took the recipe to his grave. I have asked the workers at the Kaaps candy shop about the recipe, and they say they get asked about it all the time.
Could this be it with Juanita Conner’s variation using 8 oz. cream cheese?
It could be, Diane. You’d better make one and see
My grandmother has made a variation of this cake for years. We call it the funeral cake because she always brings it to funerals. She did, however, make a lemon version for my wedding cake!
Diane Goffard
I have been trying to find Otto Kaaps cheesecake recipe for 40 plus years. I even made an angel food cake and added cream cheese to it, and it was not quite right,.
Did you try this recipe using the cream cheese and how did it turn out. I am dying to know!