Pound Cake

Method

1. mix8 min
   medium-high, longer than feels right
   butter + sugar + salt creamed a full eight minutes, scraping twice — with no chemical leavener, the air cut into the butter here is the ONLY rise this cake will ever have; the mixture should turn nearly white and read as frosting, and every minute skipped is a denser slice
2. mix5 min
   one egg at a time, fully absorbed
   + eggs singly with the vanilla, each beaten in completely — four eggs into a butter emulsion is the recipe's high-wire act; if it starts to look curdled, a spoonful of the flour brings it back
3. fold3 min
   lowest speed, then by hand
   + flour in three additions, finished with a spatula — the mixer built structure for eight minutes and can now destroy it in one; the last streaks disappear by hand
4. bake65 min
   325°F, buttered loaf pan, tester clean
   low and long — pound cake is dense by design and needs the gentle oven to cook through before the crust overdarkens; the top will split down the middle, which is not a flaw but the signature, the crumb pushing through its own crust
5. rest20 min
   15 in the pan, then on a rack
   before slicing thick — and the flavor is a day-two story: wrapped overnight, the butter redistributes and the crumb turns from good to velvet; this cake was built for keeping, which is why it survived three centuries