I absolutely love homemade pound cake, and I have been watching my mother and grandparents make pound cakes since I was an infant. My grandfather, after he retired, taught himself how to make pound cakes because he loved them so much. I have been making pound cakes since I was a teenager, and over the years I have learned a few tips that help make the cake molto delicioso [that's "really good" in Italian, y'all].
Here are the tips: use Crisco for a moister cake, cream the heck out of the butter and sugar, and use almond extract as well as vanilla.
POUND CAKE
1 stick butter [real butter, not margarine]
1 cup Crisco
3 cups sugar
Cream the butter/Crisco/sugar a long time. Really let the mixer cream it until it's like buttah, y'all.
Add in 5 large eggs, one at a time, just beating them in carefully, but not overbeating.
Set out 3 cups of cake flour in one bowl on the counter, and a 1 cup of sour cream. In the sour cream, mix in 1/4 tsp. baking soda. Alternate mixing in the sour cream and the flour, beating well after each addition but not overbeating, until everything is incorporated.
Add in 1 teaspoon vanilla, and one teaspoon almond flavoring.
Bake at 350 about 90 minutes. Check it after 80 minutes, if you don't know if your oven runs hot or cool. No oven is perfect.
SOME COMMON MISTAKES:
Use real butter and real sour cream. Don't try to go low fat. Use real vanilla extract and real almond extract. The fake, or "imitation" kinds are not as good. Be sure and grease and flour your pan well. I use a bundt pan that's nearly as old as me, and just give it a spray of Baker's Secret.
A good pound cake will actually be better the second day, as long as you keep it in a good cake carrier.