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The King's Pound Cake

The King's Pound Cake with Strawberry Topping


The King's Pound Cake
Source: Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts (Andrews & McMeel Publishing, 1999 ed.), pg. 155.

This was Elvis Presley's favorite pound cake according to a 1997 TV Guide article. I was curious and did some Internet searches for this and all of them are identical except for the addition of mace. I'm not sure if the mace was a Maida Heatter addition but apparently it is optional. Mace is similar to nutmeg but much stronger. Maida goes into elaborate detail on measuring 1/8 of mace (apparently 1/8 measures must not have been around when she wrote her book. 

I overbaked the cake a bit and the crust was a little too dark. She recommends using a light metal pan and I did that and it still overbaked. Baking time calls for 75-80 minutes. I baked for 60 minutes which was still too much. Be careful!

1/2 lb. (2 sticks) unsalted butter (softened)
1/8 tsp. mace
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups sugar
7 eggs
3 cups sifted cake flour
8 oz. (1 cup) heavy cream  

Adjust an oven rack 1/3 from the bottom. Preheat to 350. Butter (or spray) 2 10x10x3 loaf pans (light metal if you have it) and dust with fine dry bread crumbs.


Beat the butter until soft.

Add the mace, baking powder and salt. Mix well.
Add the vanilla.

Gradually add the sugar and beat for about 5 minutes.


Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula as necessary.

Lower the speed of the mixer and add half of the flour mixture.


Gradually add the heavy cream and mix well.

Add the remaining flour. Beat only until smooth.
Divide the batter between the two pans.
Bake for 55-75 minutes. The cake is ready when it starts to pull away from the sides of the pan. Let the cakes cool in the pans on racks for about 20 minutes. Carefully invert the pans and remove the cakes and let them cool completely on racks.
    Yum
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Comments

Anonymous said…
baking time has to be a misprint.
Sounds good esp. the strawberry topping
January 15, 2013 at 9:12 PM
Unknown said…
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Sakk Tº
info@mytaste(dot)com
August 1, 2014 at 1:21 AM
Anonymous said…
I haven't baked the Elvis Presley pound cake in years, but if I don't remember wrong, the baking of the pound cake was started in a cold oven.

I wanted to thank you for your blog. I give you credit for bringing me back to baking, and your comments about the recipes are very much appreciated. Thank You!

Pat, a Puerto Rican in Tx
November 29, 2018 at 10:22 PM
Anonymous said…
You made a mistake! This is a family favorite recipe and I followed your blog recipe for my mom’s birthday, but you listed 3 cups of sugar… this cake is way too sweet!!! It’s supposed to be 2 cups! Please fix your recipe so others don’t make this mistake :(
January 25, 2025 at 7:49 AM
Anonymous said…
I guess I made a mistake thinking that the 3 cups wasn’t in the original recipe. There are some other bloggers who posted it as 2 cups, my mistake! Still I may try that next time since this is a pretty sweet cake
January 25, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Phillip Oliver said…
I went back and looked and sure enough, it is 3 cups. I also looked at the recent book "Happiness Is Baking" to see if there was a correction, but it is indeed the same. That is a lot of sugar but it would probably be fine with just 2 cups.
January 25, 2025 at 8:51 AM
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