Italian Pound Cake

Plumcake is an Italian favorite that has nothing to do with plums. It is pronounced PLOOMcake in Italian but it is also known as quattro quarti or four quarters as each ingredient of eggs, butter, sugar and flour was equal in weight. The original name was derived from the fact that a pound of each ingredient was required to make the cake. There are several Italian versions. Some flavor the batter with lemon, others swear by including apricot yogurt for moistness and cookbook author Pellegrino Artusi defined the  Plumcake  as “the sweet liar” since its name was misleading.

“Plumcake” doesn’t represent a single recipe, but a category of baked products, characterized by the rectangular shape

This cake is thought of as a breakfast food to go with the morning espresso or cappuccino.

Difficulty Serves
Easy 8-10

Ingredients

  • 3 eggs, room temperature
  • 1 ¼ cups sugar
  • ½ cup sunflower oil
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 3 tbs fresh lemon juice plus zest
  • 2 ½ cups flour
  • ¾ cup cornstarch
  • 1 tbs baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350F Butter and flour a 12 x 4 x 2- inch loaf or similar pan and set aside
  2. In large bowl, whip together eggs, sugar oil, water lemon juice, and zest.
  3. In separate bowl, sift together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt.
  4. Beat the dry ingredients a little at a time into the wet ingredients until well combined.
  5. Scrape the batter into pan and bake about 55 minutes or until the cake is golden brown, and a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
  6. Transfer to a cooling rack and cool completely.
  7. Frost with confectioners’ sugar glaze or dust with confectioners sugar.

This recipe was featured on Season 30 - Episode 3005.

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Comments

Ginny Ziccardi

👏👏👏😍😋

Louise Carlin

I love you recipes. Would you happen to know the Procida lemon cake, Vittoria Lemon Cake I believe it’s called? I’d love to know the recipe so I can recreate this for my Italian FIL

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