Help With Pound Cake: Too Airy With A Loose Crumb?
Baking By craftybanana Updated 2 Jun 2014 , 12:57pm by craftybanana
Hello all,
I just tried the recipe called 5-Flavor pound cake tonight and it came out tasty, but..... it was light and airy like an angel food cake yet you can barely fork it without it going to crumbs. It is very moist, so I know it's not because it's dry. I got the recipe from here, but I can't find it again, so I've put it below. Any suggestions? I looked at some other pound cake recipes and it looks similar so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. The only changes I made was to sub coconut milk for the milk because I did not have the coconut extract and I only used butter, no shortening. Tasted great, except for the falling apart bit.
Five Flavor Pound Cake
By: ltkittykat of CakeCentral.com
Ingredients
1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon butter extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
1/2 teaspoon Orange or Lemon extract
(I don't use both I pick which ever I have on hand but I always use one of them for the citric flavor)
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. or bake at 325F the whole time
(I crank the oven up to 400 to start the cake out at a super hot oven, and when I put the cakes in I turn it down to 325)
2. With a mixer, cream butter, shortening and extracts together.
3. Add sugar, a cup at a time. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition. (I keep the mixer on low and keep it running through the course of adding the ingredients)
4. Add salt and baking powder.
5. Add flour to mixer alternately with milk, starting with the flour and ending with the flour. Pour into a large Bundt (tube) pan (prepped for baking, either greased or floured,which ever your preference) for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
6. Pour glaze on top at this point. Let sit overnight before unmolding. Some recipes say to pour only half of glaze before unmolding, and the other half on top when inverted.
This is a strong cake mix that will hold up under weight.
The best part of the cake mix is that being similar to a pound cake, the longer the cake sits baked, the better it taste, after several days the flavors actually taste better.
Glaze: 1tsp of each extract, 1cup of sugar, 1/2cup water: combine all in a saucepan and cook until sugar is melted. Pour over cake when it comes out of the oven.
Other flavor Combos:
1. Vanilla, Coconut, Butter, Rum, Lemon
I love the flavor in that cake! There isn't enough leavener to make the cake light and airy, as you described. Any chance you added too much baking powder? Maybe you can PM the member who posted the recipe http://cakecentral.com/u/921796/ltkittykat
Maybe the coconut milk just didn't work well with this recipe, as that's the only thing that you did different from the recipe.
My recipe is similar but uses coconut milk. It gives the pound cake a wonderful flavor. Can't imagine what the problem is, other than a measuring mistake. Happens to the best of us.
Yes I see, Mimi, your recipe is similar in using coconut milk.
Craftybanana One thing that I don't like about the recipe above is the way the salt and baking powder is added. It would be better if it were stirred into the flour before being added to the wet stuff.
Thank you both, I will check my measurements again and I'll add the salt and baking powder to the flour first. Would too much baking powder cause it to be crumbly?
edit: typo
I checked the measuring spoon I used, I used the right amount of baking powder. I'll try a different recipe and compare it to this one.
Hm, okay, I'll give it another shot then, once I finish off the current batch (which shouldn't take too long, lols). 
http://joyofbaking.com/bakingsoda.html
this joy of baking site has a lot of useful information. I bake my pound cakes and my own modified pound cake recipe in regular cake pans, I don't have bundt cake pans so I'm not much help............
Quote:
http://joyofbaking.com/bakingsoda.html
this joy of baking site has a lot of useful information. I bake my pound cakes and my own modified pound cake recipe in regular cake pans, I don't have bundt cake pans so I'm not much help............
So THAT'S why you add the baking soda with the flour. There were large holes on the bottom, makes sense now! And this is why I stick to cookies, lols. I'm a complete dunce when it comes to cakes but I'm slowly learning. Someday I'll be able to take off this pointy hat 
You stated that you didn't use shortening? Why? I think shortening helps keep everything together better than just all butter and with all butter perhaps the high temp being suggested had something to do with the crumb. To me butter whips light and fluffy and maybe the high temp broke the butter down. Not sure however try following the recipe as written as the cake is delicious and bake it at 325 until done. Good Luck. 
You stated that you didn't use shortening? Why? I think shortening helps keep everything together better than just all butter and with all butter perhaps the high temp being suggested had something to do with the crumb. To me butter whips light and fluffy and maybe the high temp broke the butter down. Not sure however try following the recipe as written as the cake is delicious and bake it at 325 until done. Good Luck.
I prefer butter, except in cookies I don't want to spread. But I baked it at 325, instead of starting it at 400. Also, I let it sit for a day in the refrigerator and it was less crumbly.... strange? Oh well, I'll be baking a new one this week, along with MBalaska's recipe. I was going to try this weekend, but a lot of things came up. So I'm, going to try again this week. Will post my results when I'm done. (And I'll put shortening in this time) :)
Edit: spelling errors, still lacking sleep, lols
Okay, so I remade the pound cake and it came out fine this time, I just won't ever use it for cupcakes again.... darn thing shrunk 1/3 of the way after it had cooled. Still tasty though. I did top it with indydeb's icing with the same flavorings as the pound cake and it came out delicious! I still need to make MBalaska's recipe, seems the only time I have to bake is when the hubby is home since my little one keeps waking up 5 minutes after I lay him down. Even then it's either bake, eat or sleep....ha ha.
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