Do you like making pound cakes from time to time? In some families, it’s a staple dessert that’s baked fairly often.
It’s an old recipe that was created back in the day for an interesting reason. The story goes that people needed a simple recipe to follow that would allow them to bake a tasty cake.
To make a pound cake, you just need to use one pound of each of the main ingredients. This cake is made of butter, flour, sugar, and eggs.
What you wind up creating with this recipe is a very dense cake that is incredibly filling. If you stick with the classic recipe, it’s very likely that you won’t be able to finish all of it right away.
Even if you have a large family, you’re likely going to want to save some for later. Keep reading to get information on how to store pound cake the right way.
Cover the Pound Cake
The big trick to getting pound cake to store properly is wrapping it up or covering it up in some way. There are a few ways that you can approach this, but you’ll ultimately be doing the same thing no matter what.
You could wrap it with some type of plastic. It’s easy to get a plastic wrap from the store that helps to make food products last as long as possible by keeping air from getting in.
Some might find it to be more convenient to simply store the pound cake in some type of airtight container. You can place the leftover cake in an airtight plastic container that you can keep in a safe spot.
Even something as simple as having a cake pan that has a lid that is airtight will work fine. It’s just about keeping the oxygen away from the cake so that it can stay good for as long as it can.
Which approach you choose to go with doesn’t matter too much. It’s probably more convenient to use a lid on a cake pan, though.
Store the Cake at Room Temperature
Storing the cake at room temperature is the recommended thing to do. You might think that storing it in the refrigerator would be a better idea, but this isn’t necessarily the case.
Technically, you can make a pound cake stay good for longer if you keep it in the fridge, but this is going to make the cake worse as the texture and the flavor will be altered.
You’ll wind up having a cake that tastes much worse than it should if you decide to refrigerate it. It isn’t worth it just to try to extend the amount of time you’ll have to finish eating it.
You see, the pound cake will only stay good in the fridge for around seven days. This isn’t substantially longer than what you can expect when storing it at room temperature.
On average, pound cake will last between four and five days when stored properly at room temperature. This means that as long as you’ve put it in a proper container or wrapped it up in plastic, everything is going to be fine.
If you think that you won’t be able to finish it in time, it’s probably best to just eat as much of it as you want. Eat what you can and then discard the rest after the fifth day has arrived.
Can You Freeze Pound Cake?
Some might be wondering whether it’s possible to freeze pound cake if you made too much to eat. Yes, you can freeze it if you want to, but it’ll only stay good without degrading in quality for a certain amount of time.
To freeze pound cake, you’re going to first need to wait until it has completely cooled. This means waiting to freeze it until at least an hour or so after baking it.
Once the cake has cooled, you’ll need to wrap it tightly using either aluminum foil or plastic wrapping that is rated to be used in the freezer. Some people simply place cakes such as this into freezer bags.
Either way, you’ll want to write the date on it so that you’ll know when you placed it in the freezer. It should stay good for approximately four to six months.
After this period of time, it’s going to start to degrade in quality. It’ll have significant texture issues and you likely won’t find it to be all that tasty any longer.
You can still eat pound cake that has been frozen after this point if you want to. The taste just might not be to your liking.
How Can You Tell When a Pound Cake Has Gone Bad?
Telling when pound cake has gone bad isn’t all that tough either. Simply look at the cake and see if any mold has formed on it.
If you see any mold present on it, you’re going to need to throw it out as soon as possible. Don’t eat parts of the cake that aren’t moldy because you’ll still run the risk of getting sick.
You might notice that it’ll smell different when it goes bad, too. If you don’t see anything wrong with the cake from a visual standpoint, you’ll still want to pay attention to the smell.
If the cake smells off in any way, there’s a good chance that it’s gone bad. Of course, you can also just choose to throw a pound cake out if it’s older than five days old to be safe.
Final Thoughts
Storing a pound cake isn’t hard to do at all. You can just wrap it up in plastic and safely keep it in your pantry or on the counter at room temperature.
It might be more convenient to keep it in a cake pan that has an airtight lid. You could also place it in an airtight plastic container and keep it somewhere safe in a room-temperature environment.
Refrigerating pound cake will extend how long it’ll stay good, but it throws off the texture of the cake. It also only makes it stay good for a few days longer.
You can freeze this cake if you wrap it in plastic or aluminum foil. It’ll stay good for between four and six months depending on various factors.
Sarah is the founder of Baking Kneads, LLC, a blog sharing guides, tips, and recipes for those learning how to bake. Growing up as the daughter of a baker, she spent much of her childhood learning the basics in a local bakery.