French Friday with Dorie: Quatre-Quarts

I have been making pound cakes all my life, but this is the first time I have made a French version. Quatre-quarts means four-fourths and the French recipe calls for equal measures of four ingredients: eggs, butter, flour, and sugar. Dorie made the recipe easy for us by allowing for the differences between American and French flours and tweaked the French recipe a bit, so no weighing was necessary to make this basic cake.

I have always made my pound cakes in a loaf pan, but Dorie suggests using a spring form pan. Since John recently found this heart-shaped pan for me I decided to use it instead. One of the things that was different about making this than the pound cakes I am used to is that you separate the eggs and whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form and then fold them into the batter making this a lighter cake than the American version. And instead of using vanilla extract, I used the option of brandy which gave it an extra bit of sweetness. I really liked Dorie's sprinkling of light brown sugar on top of the cake to give it a little golden twinkle.

Since I often serve pound cake with fruit and whipped cream, I decided to do the same with the quatre-quarts. We both enjoyed it served this way, but I also really liked it plain the next morning with my morning coffee. 

Dorie said this cake would be dry by our standards, but I didn't think it was dry at all. Check out the other quatre-quarts over at French Fridays with Dorie to see what the other group members thought.