Pound Cake looking like Sara Lee!
What is it about snowy weather and baking? I'm really not a baker. Throughout the year, you have to drag me kicking and screaming to touch a mixer and oven, but when it snows, I have the urge to bake. Cookies, cakes, bread, whatever - if there's snow outside, I feel a calling.
And once again, that call was calling me to make pound cake. During the December blizzard I made pound cake and made some critical errors. Mainly, I mixed up an entire batch and tossed it into one, single pan. It took two hours to bake and the texture was more crumbly than the smooth density that I'm seeking in a commercial Sara Lee pound cake.
Yes, I realize that one should not strive to recreate a commercially compromised product, but I can't help it. I grew up on Sara Lee pound cake and, therefore, it is the benchmark (for me) for pound cakes.
This time, I took a pound each of butter, eggs and sugar, mixed them together until smooth, then added the zest and juice of one lemon, two tsp of vanilla extract, two tsp of salt and a pound of flour. Mix it all together until the dry ingredients have become wet and scoop it into two bread pans. Bake at 325F for one hour.
An hour later, the cakes come out and they're looking quite different than the last attempt. Slice it open and darn if they don't have that dense, buttery and silky texture that I'm looking for. Success in the snow!
Time to brew some coffee.