3. Use Room Temperature Ingredients
Using chilled ingredients in your recipe is every newbie baker’s biggest mistake. The molecules in the eggs and butter contract and they don’t mix as well. Cold eggs and butter don’t provide the recipe with the extra volume it needs to fluff up the dough to keep the cake from falling in the oven.
Try beating cold eggs with your flour, and you’ll notice what we’re talking about here. The eggs put up resistance when trying to break them apart with the mixer, and the cold increases the surface tension of the eggs and butter, making it a challenge to mix the ingredients efficiently.
Before you get started on your pound cake recipe, leave the eggs and butter out on the counter to warm up to room temperature. This strategy typically takes a few hours, so pull them out of the fridge in the morning, and they’ll be ready to use by midday.