Perfect Pound Cake

When I was a kid, my mother used to bake me the most amazing birthday cakes.  She would carve them into ballerinas, lion heads and fun, familiar characters.  I don’t think she ever brought a store-bought cake into the house.

As we got older, we outgrew the fun shapes of her cakes but we always seemed to request that she make us pound cakes.  Those were the best.  Sometimes she put powdered sugar on top, sometimes she iced them with chocolate frosting… but they were always my absolute favorite cake.  When I moved to California, I looked forward to those overnight FedEx boxes containing my birthday cake… having been lovingly made, packaged up and shipped to my door.

While I don’t get baked birthday cakes very often any  more, I do make pound cake for my family as often as I can.  I say often because a pound cake doesn’t last very long in my house.

In honor of my mother’s upcoming birthday (no, I won’t say which one), I thought I’d share Mom’s Pound Cake recipe.

Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 cups cake flour (you can use regular flour but the cake flour makes it lighter)
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. almond extract
1 tbs. powdered sugar (for topping, if desired)

All ingredients should be at room temperature before you start baking.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour a tube pan or a bundt pan.  Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.

In an electric mixer, cream the butter while gradually adding in the sugar.  Beat until it’s light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time and mix well between each one.  Alternately add the sifted ingredients with the mil and flavorings.  Beat until smooth.  Pour into the greased pan and bake for one hour.

Allow the cake to cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes and gently remove from pan to cool completely on a wire rack.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar or you can ice the cake with your favorite frosting.  Or, feel free to leave it alone and just gobble it up as is.