Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Pound Cake/Kitchen Nightmare

We were hosted for dinner at a friends house the other day and I volunteered to bring pound cake with berries and cream. First mistake- I had never in my life made a pound cake before. Not having a recipe of my own I went to the internet and found a Paula Deen recipe. The recipe had good reviews so I chose to go with that one. I got everything mixed together and tossed it in the oven. About 20 minutes into baking there was smoke billowing out of the kitchen, the batter was overflowing from the bundt pan onto the burners of the oven...not a good combination. A little over an hour later we had a burnt looking crust on the pound cake from where it rose so high that it was too close to the top burner of the oven. We cut the nasty burnt part off and tried to get the cake out of the pan. We thought the cake released so we lifted the pan off and it was in a million pieces. Third mistake- thinking that a generous coating of Pam and 3 sticks of butter in the cake would be enough to keep it from sticking to the pan.
So, we had a trifle! The pound cake was actually really good but given the amount that flowed over it was probably enough for 2 pound cakes.
Mama's Pound Cake
ingredients:
1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, plus more for pan
1/2 cup shortening (I used another stick of butter because I don't like shortening)
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
With a mixer, cream butter and shortening together. Add sugar, a little at a time. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Stir dry ingredients together in a bowl and add to mixer alternately with milk, starting with the flour and ending with the flour. Mix in vanilla. Pour into a greased and floured tube pan and bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

5 comments:

Marina said...

Hahahaha!!! So where's the recipe!!!?

House of Squitty said...

It's there now. I thought that I was posting the story behind it on my blog and then I realized that I put it on the cooking blog. I shortened up the story a bit and posted the recipe since it was actually pretty good!

Mary McDonald said...

I thought a pound cake meant, equal parts of butter, flour, & sugar - all being a pound a piece....

House of Squitty said...

I did too Mary but Paula Deen said otherwise. I mean, I can't argue with Paula Deen!

Marina said...

Hahaha...ok, gotcha! Well, I never knew that about "pound" cake...makes sense. I am soooo uneducated!!! ;)