Pound Cake

In one of the cake decorating books I read, it suggested using pound or Madeira cakes for decorating because it shapes and holds up fondant well. I found a Paula Deen recipe for pound cake on Food Network's website ... but that got me thinking ... why is it called pound cake? Wikipedia to the rescue!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_cake

Pound cake refers to a type of cake traditionally made with a pound of each of four ingredients: flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. However, the quantity is often changed to suit the size of the cake that is desired. As long as the ratio is preserved, the resulting cake will generally be very similar to that using the traditional quantities. Hence, any cake made with a 1:1:1:1 ratio of flour, butter, eggs, and sugar is also called a pound cake, even if the quantity used is smaller or larger than an actual pound.