Last week, I mentioned that the @GimletMommy tweeted a link to her Eggnog Pound Cake Recipe – and I became a woman, obsessed. On Thursday evening, I whipped up not one, but three different eggnog pound cake recipes. And with that, the 2010 Eggnog Pound Cake Recipe SmackDown was on! On Friday morning, I packaged them up, and delivered them to our voters. I hoped that I would get a definitive answer as to which is the best eggnog pound cake…
Traditionally, a pound cake is made with a 1 to 1 ratio of butter to flour to eggs to sugar. I am not a math expert, but none of the recipes that I made had this ratio. They were heavy on the flour, and to be honest, I felt like they all fell flat. I was also confused by the method described in the Spiced Eggnog cake.
I liked the flavors of this cake, but I would have liked a bit more spice flavor. I also found the cake was too dry. I’d make this recipe again, only tweak it until I get a more moist result. Next on the smackdown: Eggnog Pound Cake from Simply Recipes. This cake was by far the moistest cake in the Eggnog Pound Cake SmackDown. Overall, I really liked the texture and moist nature of this cake. It also looked the best when it came out of the mold. The shame? I really don’t like rum flavored cake so I had a hard time saying it was my favorite.
Going back to The Spiced Eggnog Cake recipe for a moment: the recipe said the pan should be greased and floured. The Eggnog Pound Cake recipe called for a only a greased pan. I honestly think that with the way bundt pans are now coated – flouring a pan is unnecessary. However, if you have an old-fashioned bundt pan – disregard that last statement and flour away!
Again, this Eggnog Pound Cake recipe called for mixing dry ingredients into wet, and then to add more wet ingredients. (When I got to this point in the recipe, felt like I was taking crazy pills – since when is this a popular method?) Also: I doctored up the icing on this cake. The first change I made was that I used confectioners sugar. It dissolves better than granulated sugar. I also added some eggnog to the icing mixture as I was trying to lessen the rum flavor of the cake. 
I prepared these from a “cheater” pound cake recipe that starts with a boxed pound cake mix. Can I tell you what? It was so easy and they were (overall) the favorite cake! I truly hate to admit it. I’d like to say the one that was made from scratch tasted best – but ask anyone – this recipe had it. It was moist, had the right crumble, and the texture was the best.
Yikes! What does that say about the other two recipes I tried? The long story short is that I have three sticks of butter softening on my counter top as I type. I’m going to whip up Gimlet Mommy’s recipe and I’ll keep you posted with the results.
