Pound Cake Advice

I was wondering if anyone might have any advice concerning a cream cheese pound cake I am having difficulty with. The cake itself is outstanding- buttery, moist, dense and has a nice crusty top. The problem is that when I pull the cake out of the oven the top of the cake cracks and falls as it cools. There is a nice crusty layer on top but then as it cools it cracks and there seems to be a pocket of air between the top of the cake and cake below. It seems as though the cake raises then contracts as it cools resulting in the problem. The cake bakes at 300 degrees for 1.5 hours ( my oven can take up to almost 2 hours) with a 2-cup measuring cup filled with water placed in the oven alongside the tube pan. The recipe calls for beating the butter and cream cheese for 2 minutes or until creamy and then gradually adding 3 cups sugar and beating for 5-7 minutes.

I have made this cake over a dozen times and I cannot pinpont what the problem maybe. I would greatly appreciate any advice. Thank you.

HI,

An ingrediant list to see proportions would be appreciated. Is this a published recipe? If you give the instructions, then amend them from the original because the instructions are copyrighted, but the ingrediants are not.

It does not mean I can offer a final solution, but the more information the better.

Hi. Thanks for helping me with this. I appreciate your time. The recipe as I do it is as follows:

1.5 c. butter, softened
1 (8 ounce) cream cheese, softened
3 c. sugar
6 large eggs
1.5 t. vanilla
3 c. all-purpopse flour
1/8 t. salt

I beat the butter and cream cheese until creamy. Put in 1 cup at a time of sugar and beat this for about 5 minutes. I then add the eggs one at a time and add vanilla.

I add flour and salt gradually to creamy mixture and pour batter into greased and floured tube pan. I put the cake in preheated 300 degree oven with 2 cup measuring cup filled with water and bake about 2 hours. I then cool the cake on a rack about 15 minutes then remove it from pan to finish cooling.

HI,

I ran over to epicurious.com where they had a recipe from Bon Appetit, 2003 similar to yours except how they baked it:

Place pan in cold oven. Set temperature at 200 F; bake 20 minutes. Increase temperature to 250 F; bake 20 minutes. Increase to 275 F; bake 10 minutes. Increase to 300 F; bake cake until tester inserted near center comes out clean, about 1 hour longer. Cool cake in pan on rack 15 minutes. Turn cake out onto rack; cool completely. (Can be made 3 days ahead. Wrap; store at room temperature.)

I hope this helps as Bon Appetit usually provides well tested recipes. Let us know what happens.

Thanks so much for your help. I will definely give this a try.and let you know how it turns out.

I just had a couple other thoughts. I do make this in my Kitchen Aide mixer using the wisk attachment. Do you think this is best or would the paddle attachment be better? Also, do you think the water in the even is necessary or could I leave it out?
Thanks.

Hi,

I would use the paddle, not the whip/whisk which adds more air into the batter than you may really need or want.

In general, for creaming and making batter you use the paddle. The whip/whisk is for egg whites and whipping cream. The dough hook for bread, though only at very low speeds or you risk stripping the gears of newer Kitchenaids, where some models have plastic gears.

Why not forgo the water during your next baking cycle to see if you like the cake under these conditions. Was water suggested in your original recipe or something you like to do?

What I do to ensure an attractive split on the top of my pound cakes is after 15 minutes of baking when the natural split has begun to develop, I score right down the middle of the cake with a lightly buttered knife.

Going by some of the FoodTV shows I've seen, cracking happens when the cake either heats up or cools off too quickly. The purpose of the water bath (bain marie) is to prevent overheating, because water can't be any hotter than 212 (and rarely reaches that during the time it takes to bake), so you probably don't want to omit that step. (Although, as Cathy2 says, experimentation never hurts. And since the Bon Appetit recipe Cathy2 refers to increases the heat of the oven itself gently over time, it may be sufficient to compensate for the loss of the water's moderating effect.)

I notice you're taking the cake right out of the oven -- you may want to leave it in there longer with the heat turned off but the door still closed. I believe Alton Brown recommended this step during his "Good Eats" show on cheesecakes (relevant since your pound cake has so much cream cheese), and the America's Test Kitchen TV show published by Cook's Illustrated magazine has referred to it too. This gives the cake more time to set gently without any shocks from rapidly changing temperature. It is obviously a much slower procedure but apparently it's the only reliable way around the problem at the cooling end of the recipe.

The purpose of the water bath (bain marie) is to prevent overheating, because water can't be any hotter than 212 (and rarely reaches that during the time it takes to bake), so you probably don't want to omit that step.

Hi Bob,

In her procedure, unless I misinterpreted something, she was not using a bain marie rather a cup of water in the oven.

In Cook's Illustrated article on cheesecake, by varying the cooking times you could vary the texture of the cheesecake. Shorter period allowed a creamier cake, which is my family's preference. Longer periods caused a firmer, dryer cheesecake and one which tends to crack. Same recipe, different cooking times and very different outcomes. Cool!

Cathy2 wrote:

The purpose of the water bath (bain marie) is to prevent overheating, because water can't be any hotter than 212 (and rarely reaches that during the time it takes to bake), so you probably don't want to omit that step.

Hi Bob,

In her procedure, unless I misinterpreted something, she was not using a bain marie rather a cup of water in the oven.

Whoops! Silly me -- I should try this "reading" thing I've heard so much about. At any rate, in that case I recommend a bain marie. The reason for water isn't steam (which the 2 cups of water would provide, but I can't think of another benefit) but to surround the springform pan with a gentler heat that more slowly cooks the batter (which, as Alton Brown noted, is halfway between a batter and a custard). As I say, the goal is a gentler transition from cool to warm and back to cool -- the Bon Appetit recipe does that by changing the oven's temperature.

Cathy2 wrote:In Cook's Illustrated article on cheesecake, by varying the cooking times you could vary the texture of the cheesecake. Shorter period allowed a creamier cake, which is my family's preference. Longer periods caused a firmer, dryer cheesecake and one which tends to crack. Same recipe, different cooking times and very different outcomes. Cool!

Alas, I tried to check AmericasTestKitchen.com for their comments on baking cheesecakes, but it seems to have joined CooksIllustrated.com as a subscriber site. (I do remember their warning to not only use the bain marie but to wrap the bottom of the springform pan with aluminum foil to prevent leaks. The Bon Appetit temperature-changing technique would make that unnecessary, of course.) Thanks for clearing that up! I'm with you in preferring creamier cheesecakes -- and the side benefit is that since they take less time to cook, they're ready to eat sooner.

Note: The OP was asking for advice about Pound Cake (not Cheesecake...an entirely different animal). I am decidedly NOT a baker, so take this with the grain of salt that should be added to almost all cake recepies. In reading the posts, it occured to me that perhaps using the whisk to mix the batter rather than the paddle might be introducing too much air into the batter. Maybe this extra air is causing the air pocket between the top crust and the rest of the cake. If the air is causing the batter to puff up long enough for the top to set, but then lose volume under its own weight during the rest of the baking process, this could explain the problem. Maybe stirring more gently with the paddle so as not to create too many air bubbles will fix the problem.

Steve,

I agree, I think the whip is introducing too much air into the batter. Something which wasn't obvious until she inquired whether to continue with the whip rather than the paddle.

The conversation drifted to cheesecake when Bob mentioned the ban marie. However, there is a lot of butter, cream cheese and eggs relative to flour in this cake; then one normally encounters. The proposed baking method from Bon Appetit is unusual, also. AFter a while, thinking of this cake as having cheesecake type properties is not so far fetched.

I am inclined to make this cake just to see for myself what it is like.

Bob S. wrote:
Alas, I tried to check AmericasTestKitchen.com for their comments on baking cheesecakes, but it seems to have joined CooksIllustrated.com as a subscriber site.

I looked up the cooks illustrated poundcake recipes and neither calls for a bain marie.

The interesting thing about the two recipes (one from 98, one from 2002) is that both call for a somewhat different cooking technique: one calls for 325F the whole way through, the other calls for starting at 350 and dropping to 300 after 15 minutes or so.

Thanks to all of you for your help! I am learning a lot from you and your ideas. These are all great ideas and I will try them all until I get this cake right. I'll be sure to keep you posted on my progress.

Cathy2, if you do try this cake, let me know how what you think.

Eek -- thanks for reminding me. I was so inspired by the addition of cream cheese to the recipe that I apparently forgot there was anything else to it. This makes me think I need a fix; I hope the deli has slices to go tomorrow!

Just as a general point of reference, Shirley Corriher in Cookwise goes into fascinating detail about the three critical ratios for cakes:

Weight of sugar should be equal or less than the weight of the flour
Weight of the eggs should be equal or greater than the weight of the fat
Weight of the liquids (eggs) should be equal to the weight of the flour

So assuming that cream cheese would be "fat", your recipe breaks down:

butter (8 oz/cup) = 12. oz
sugar (7 oz/cup) = 21 oz
cream cheese = 8 oz
eggs (1.7 oz./large egg) = 10.2 oz
flour (4.6 oz/cup) = 13.8 oz

Total weight of fat (butter + cream cheese) = 20 oz

Well first off, this may not actually be similar to traditional pound cake which calls for equal weight of flour, sugar, butter, and eggs.

In terms of Corriher's balancing rules, your recipe fails all three:

The weight of the sugar far exceeds that of the flour
The weight of the eggs is far less than the weight of the fat
The weight of the liquid is somewhat less than the fat

There all kinds of other variables that Corriher discusses, but whenver I have a problem with a cake, the solution often entails bringing it closer in line with the above ratios. I certainly have successful recipes that diverge from these rules.

That was fun! It's the middle of the night and now I have a craving for pound cake.

Bill,

Thank you for the Shirley Corriher input. It clarified my feeling this was extraordinary recipe relative to proportions. It explains the finicky baking method, which teeters on something Cook's Illustrated might recommend.

I've met Shirley Corriher and refer to her articles often ... silly me, I have not got her book in my collection. I need to repair my error.

Thanks for your late night oil well spent.

Hi,
I just wanted to keep you up to date on my "perfecting" process of this pound cake. Last night I gave it my first attempt ( I have small children and time is not always easy to find to bake!). I am trying one thing at a time to weed out the problem. I did everything as I always did but used the paddle attachment instead of the wisk on my Kitchen Aid. Result...better but still had the same problem of the cake "falling" underneath the crispy,crust top. Next weekend I am planning on working on the cooling process to see if that does anything.

I'll keep you posted.