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How to make a Mississippi pound cake: 'It smells like home.'

Dec 29, 2023Dec 29, 2023

Mississippi pound cake

My great-grandmother on my father's side lived a block away from my childhood home. By the time I reached 14, she and I were tight. (She appreciated conversation more than babies.) She baked the best apple pies, teacakes and pound cakes.

Of those, with the help of my aunt on my mother's side, I have cracked the code of my great-grandmother's pound cake. My aunt and uncle owned a small grocery store near our neighborhood. My great-grandmother shopped by phone there, and my aunt or uncle would deliver her groceries.

As I understand things, that grocery shopping link is how my aunt on my mother's side learned the secrets of my great-grandmother on my father's side's pound cake.

Preparing a Mississippi pound cake

The secret: Swans Down Cake Flour.

These days I make the cake using my great-grandmother's Bundt cake pan, a gift from the same aunt who shared her recipe. She bought the cake pan in our family's estate sale at my great-grandmother's house. I was living in Europe at the time. My aunt was kind enough to give the very old, but super durable pan to me.

For me, it smells like home. Furthermore, there is little in life that is as good as the crunch of the bottom of this pound cake when it's still warm from the oven.

Mississippi pound cake

Mississippi Pound Cake

3 sticks salted butter softened to room temperature

2 3/4 cups sugar

6 eggs at room temperature

3 cups sifted Swans Down Cake Flour

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter and lightly flour a Bundt pan. Sift 3 cups of the flour. (I use a lot of butter to prevent the cake from sticking.)

Making the batter of a Mississippi pound cake

2. In a stand mixer, beat the sugar and butter until creamy. Add one egg at a time, beating for about a minute after each egg. Once beaten well and all graininess of sugar is gone, fold in one cup of the flour. Beat at low speed with mixer. Add in 1/3 cup of whipping cream. Beat some more. Continue alternating flour and whipping cream. Add vanilla flavoring and stir.

3. Pour into prepared Bundt pan.

4. Bake for approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes, depending on oven — or until toothpick inserted into middle of cake comes out clean. Cool in pan at least 20 minutes. Remove from pan and finish cooling on a rack (for the crunchiest cake bottom).

Email Jan Risher at [email protected].

Mississippi Pound Cake3 sticks salted butter softened to room temperature2 3/4 cups sugar6 eggs at room temperature3 cups sifted Swans Down Cake Flour1 cup heavy whipping cream1 teaspoon vanilla extract