grandma knows best

As a rule, I always preheat my oven.

I suspect that it's almost completely unnecessary thanks to all of our modern technology, but I do it anyway...with one exception.

Do you know about cold oven pound cake? If you haven't made its acquaintance, you should, and quickly! It's as rich as pound cakes made in a preheated oven (what I usually make), but seems to rise higher and have a thicker crust.

The purpose of preheating your oven is to allow a lighter cake to rise quickly and then immediately kill the leavening ingredients so that the cake doesn't bubble out all over the place. Since heavy cakes like fruit cakes and pound cakes take longer to rise, they're fine to start in a cold oven. Pound cakes are so dense that they don't rise much anyway, so that initial blast of hot air just isn't necessary. When the temperature of the cake batter is allowed to rise along with the oven temperature, it develops a wonderful crust and the interior of the cake will cook completely without burning the outer rim--hooray!

Another (less nerdy) possible explanation for starting in a cold oven is that in the old (great-great grandma) days, some vessels used to bake cakes risked cracking if exposed to a sudden blast of heat from a preheated oven. We certainly don't have to worry about that anymore!

I thought about doing a traditional cold oven pound cake flavored just with vanilla, but ultimately wanted to try something a little more interesting. I substituted most of the granulated sugar with brown sugar and used coconut oil in lieu of the traditional vegetable shortening. It's really moist and that subtle flavor of brown sugar* adds a lot of depth. There's no coconut taste but a texture that is absolutely uniquely soft and tender.

*If you don't know what brown sugar tastes like, I guess you didn't eat spoonfuls of it as a kid like I did...

There really is a thick crust around all sides of this sucker, too. Though I didn't do a side-by-side comparison, I can't recall any of my previous pound cakes having quite so much of the dark brown layer. If you like the crust part of a pound cake**, I think starting with a cold oven is the path you need to take!

**For the record, I prefer the middle.

Cold Oven Brown Sugar Pound Cake (best served warm)
(printable recipe)
Makes 1 12-cup bundt cake or 2 8x4-inch loaves
Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening or coconut oil
• 2 cups brown sugar, packed
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 6 large eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1-1/2 cups pecans, toasted and chopped

Directions:
Do not preheat the oven. Liberally grease and flour a 12-cup bundt pan or 2 8x4-inch loaf pans. Set aside.
Beat butter at medium speed with an electric or stand mixer until creamy, about 5 minutes.
Gradually add sugars, beating at medium speed until light and fluffy.
Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until the yolk disappears.
Beat in the vanilla.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture alternately with sour cream, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
Beat batter at low speed just until blended after each addition.
Mix in the pecans, then spread into the prepared pan(s).
Place the pan(s) into the cold oven. Bake at 325 degrees F for 90-105 minutes or until a long skewer inserted into the center comes back clean.
Cool in the pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes then turn onto the rack to cool completely.