Pound cake or Vanilla cake

Call it a pound cake or vanilla cake ,this cake is my family's all time favourite. And may be the most often made. Probably many of you will have a similar recipe. If its just to eat as such i follow the below recipe as like.
But if i'm going to do some icing on it, i cut the sugar amount a 1/2 cup less because i feel the cake will be too sweet with filling and icing and you wont be able to eat more :)

With the below quantity, it makes one 13 * 9 inches cake or two 8" rounds.
Remember to use everything in room temperature. That will make the cake come out soft.

Ingredients:

All purpose flour or maida - 3 cups
sugar - 3 cups
butter - 2 sticks ( 1 cup)
eggs - 5
salt - a pinch
milk - 1 cup
baking soda - 1/2 tsp ( dissolve it in 1 tbsp hot water and keep)
vanilla essence - 2 tsp

Method:

In a bowl, take sugar and butter and cream them together very well with a whisk or electric mixer.

Add eggs one by one and mix them in.
Add salt and then add milk slowly and keep mixing.
Add flour slowly spoon by spoon and incorporate it well.
Add vanilla essence and baking soda in water and give it a final mix.
In between all these mixing remember to scrap down the edges at times.

Pour it into a buttered pan and gently tap it to release any air bubbles.

Bake in 300F for about 1 hour. [ depending on the oven the time might vary from 50 min to 1 hr and 10 min, so better start checking it at 50 min ]
Check for doneness.
Cool in pan for 10 minutes.

Turn it out and cool completely.

Enjoy!

note : This cake is a little denser type but moist. If you try the "Tea Cake" recipe in the blog, it will give you a more spongier cake but will be to the drier side. When going for icing and filling go for the more matching version of the cake with it.