My grandma's pound cake recipe finally worked after she told me to stop overmixing
I've been trying to make my grandma's pound cake for about 6 months now and it always came out dense and tough. Last week I called her on the phone and she asked how long I was mixing the batter. I said around 3 minutes. She laughed and told me to stop after 30 seconds max. Turns out I was developing too much gluten the whole time. I tried her way on Sunday and it came out super light and fluffy for the first time. Has anyone else had a family recipe fail because of one small step you were doing wrong?
Funny how that works with so many things in life, we just assume more effort means better results until someone shows us the easy way. It's like when I used to push so hard on a stuck jar lid until my dad told me to tap it first.