Bitch's Best Pound Cake

It goes without saying. I know that I've neglected this fair site. T'was not intentional. Life happens. For more on that, go here. I shan't bog down this blog with personal and professional strife. So, on to the matter at hand.

This is my grandmother's receipt for a pound cake, exactly as it was printed in a little pamphlet of recipes from many decades past. Like myself, she took her own hand to it, in her own way, changing things here and there. That's what I like about good receipts: you can be adventurous with them.

Now, I must say, dear reader, that unless you know a lot about such things, do not tinker with proportions too much in baking, if at all. The kind of tinkering my grandmother did and I do with this receipt is in the flavorings only. That is what is so elegant about the simple pound cake. It can be dressed up or down, and that, dear reader, is classy in my book.

I made this yesterday for a dinner with a dear friend. For the entreé, we noshed on whole wheat orecchiette with my cherry tomato pesto, and topped with fresh arugula. Alongside the cake, I supplied my guest with enormous quantities of freshly whipped cream and ripe, local blackberries. Simply divine.

Bitch's Best Pound Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Sift together the first four ingredients and set aside. With your handy electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar well. Add the eggs, one at the time, to the creamed butter and sugar mixture. Beat in the vanilla and lemon zest. Now, add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk. In other words, add about one third of the dry ingredients and mix at bit. Then add about one half of the buttermilk, continuing to mix. Then add another third of the dry, the remaining buttermilk, and then end with the remaining dry ingredients. This whole method of creaming in the sugar and fat, adding the eggs, and then alternating the dry and remaining wet ingredients, always ending with the dry, is the classic formula for cake baking. You can't really go wrong with it, unless you overbeat things once the flour goes in, for that will activate the gluten in the flour and you might end up with something more bread-like than tender and cake-like.

Spoon your batter, which will be thick, into a greased and floured tube pan. Smooth out the batter and bake for about an hour, or until a tester comes out with barely a crumb clinging to it. Let the cake cool in the pan a bit before removing, and then let cool completely before slicing. I know the temptation of the smell of the warm cake, believe me. But, the cake will remain more moist if you resist and do not cut it before it cool.

Note: On this particular day, I used 1 teaspoon each of vanilla, coconut, and almond extracts for the flavoring as I didn't have a lemon. You might think this is a lot of flavoring, but it is okay. In fact, I will sometimes go with a five flavor combination with those three as well as rum and lemon, again 1 teaspoon of each. It is delicious. As always, do use the best of ingredients, including the flavorings. Why scrimp on something you're going to eat?