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Sugar-crusted vanilla pound cake

Sugar-crusted vanilla pound cake

Pound cake is so called because traditionally it was made with a pound of each of butter, sugar, flour and eggs. This version uses panela sugar in place of some of the more traditional white sugar, adding a caramel flavour and a crunchy sugar crust. It’s best eaten on the day it’s made.

Sugar-crusted vanilla pound cake

Serves 8
Cooking Time Prep time 30 mins, cook 1 hr (plus cooling, standing)
250 gm   softened butter
125 gm each   caster sugar and panela sugar (see note)
Finely   grated rind of 1 mandarin and 1 lemon (juices reserved for sugar crust)
Scraped   seeds of 1 vanilla bean
4   eggs, at room temperature
250 gm   (1 2/3 cup) plain flour, sieved
2 tsp   baking powder
Sugar crust
Juice   of 1 mandarin and 1 lemon
60 gm   panela sugar
40 gm   caster sugar
Crushed strawberry cream
80 gm   strawberries, coarsely chopped
2 tsp   panela sugar
400 gm   crème fraîche


1 Preheat oven to 170C. Beat butter, sugars, rinds and vanilla in an electric mixer until pale and fluffy (5-6 minutes). Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then stir in flour and baking powder. Spoon into an 8.5cm x 22cm loaf tin buttered and lined with baking paper, smooth top. Bake until golden and cooked through (45 minutes-1 hour), cool in tin for 5 minutes then turn onto a wire rack.
2 For sugar crust, combine juices and sugars in a bowl and stir until dissolved, then spoon over warm cake. Stand until cooled to room temperature.
3 For crushed strawberry cream, combine strawberries and sugar in a bowl, coarsely crush strawberries and stand until juices leach from strawberries (4-5 minutes). Whisk crème fraîche in a separate bowl until thick and smooth, fold in strawberry mixture and serve with sugar-crusted vanilla pound cake.

Note Panela sugar is produced mainly in Colombia, where it’s usually sold in block form; in Australia, it’s more often seen as a granulated product.

This recipe is from the September 2011 issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller.

Drink Suggestion A pot of good old English breakfast tea.

RECIPE Emma Knowles PHOTOGRAPHY Ben Dearnley STYLING Vanessa Austin and Emma Knowles DRINK SUGGESTION Max Allen

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