Pound Cake

Bank Holiday Baking Bonanza!

Yes, I know the bank holiday was yesterday but I was doing so much baking I didn't have time to post so I thought I'd post the recipes this week.

I also know you're not supposed to start with the best, the creme de la creme but it was my favorite from the weekend and worked so well I was too excited to save it.

Regardless of the weather, bank holidays are synonymous with barbecues. Even if one guy has to cook the meat outside one-handed whilst holding an umbrella over himself while everyone stays dry inside, most of the country looks forward to lighting up the grill on a bank holiday weekend. We certainly planned on it. So I decided to be prepared.

One thing I always wanted to try was grilled pound cake. As pound cake isn't popular in England, I had to, you guessed it!, make mine from scratch.

Pound cake is quite easy. It's a little like a rich but light sponge cake with a few differences. It gets it's name from long ago when literally the recipe was a pound of each ingredient. Can you imagine?!

3 eggs

3 tbsp milk

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

150g flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

150g sugar

185g butter, softened.

Preheat oven to 350/170/gas 4

Spray and line a loaf pan with parchment paper

Combine eggs, milk, and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Add butter to dry ingredients.

Add half wet mix to the flour and butter. Mix until combined then beat on high for 1 minute.

Add remaining wet mix in two batches, beating on high 3o seconds in between.

Pour batter into the pan and bake 55-60 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. If the top starts to brown too quickly, cover with foil after 30 minutes.

Grilled pound cake has multiple variations. One option is to dip slices in a mix of egg, milk and Gran Marnier (or another liquer), then grill on each side until browned. This is sort of like French Toast/eggy bread.

Another option is to grill slices, slathered with a little butter and serve with chocolate sauce, berry sauce, ice cream, whipped cream, honey, fresh fruit, etc etc etc. The possibilities are endless.

What I ended up doing this weekend, to keep in theme with the rest of the meal (which was chicken and beef sat-ay, grilled on skewers), was to make dessert kebabs. I cubed the finished cake and threaded the cubes onto skewers. I then brushed them with melted butter and grilled them until browned. I served it with a homemade berry sauce, vanilla ice cream and framage frais. Absolutely delicious.

I wanted to post pictures but the dessert was eaten too quickly to get a clear shot in!