Pound cake history
The pound cake is believed to be of northern European origin and dates back to the early 18th century. A recipe for pound cake appears in The Art of Cookery by Hannah Glasse, published in 1747. The first U.S. cookbook, American Cookery, published in 1796, has a recipe for pound cake.
Over time, the ingredients for pound cake changed. Eliza Leslie, who wrote the 1851 edition of Direction for Cookery, used 10 eggs, beat them as lightly as possible, mixed them with a pound of flour, then added the juice of two lemons or three large oranges. This changed the flavor and texture of the cake. In the 2008 issue of Saveur, James Villas wrote that cake flour would not work in place of all-purpose flour because it lacks the strength to support the heavy batter. An early variation on this cake replaced some flour with cornmeal made from dried corn (maize), then called an Indian meal. A recipe for Indian pound cake was first published in 1828 by Eliza Leslie and later included in The Indian Meal Book, published in London in 1846 when people in Ireland were looking for alternatives to expensive wheat flour.
(Wikipedia)Ingredients
1 cup butter
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3 and 1/2 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 egg yolk
1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 and 3/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup buttermilk
1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Directions
To make this cocoa pound cake, heat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the butter, and the sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs and yolk, one at a time. Mix the flour, cocoa, salt, and baking powder in a separate bowl. Next, add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk to the wet ingredients. Finally, add the vanilla. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or util the toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack before turning out. Dust with powdered sugar. Enjoy!!