Month: April 2012

One of my earliest pound cake memories involves my mother, my favorite uncle Bob and a chocolate pound cake. No, I didn’t eat the pound cake. Sadly. Or in this case, thankfully. But every so often someone would mention a chocolate pound cake that my mother sent to her youngest brother when he was serving in Vietnam. All I would hear was “pound cake”, “Vietnam”, “Ann” and then giggles and “mold”.

Now I knew the pound cake involved was Aunt Allie’s Chocolate Pound Cake, because that pound cake is my favorite uncle Bob’s favorite. I finally asked Bob about it, and this is what he wrote (he had to write it so the story wouldn’t be lost in a fit of giggles.):

Your Mom sent me one (yes “one”) chocolate pound cake during my 365 days in Vietnam. I remember it came in a small cardboard box secured with a lot of tape and when I finally got the box opened, the cake was wrapped in at least three layers of clear plastic wrap. OK, I dug thru that only to find my long awaited chocolate pound cake with a layer of mold on about 1/3 of it. With friends and roommate gathered around, we scraped the mold off and I’ll say the cake lasted about 10 minutes. In Ann’s defense, UPS and FEDEX didn’t exist back then, everything was sent by snail mail.

Clearly soldiers will eat just about anything that isn’t mess food. That said, the family still debates who made the best pound cake: Mama or Aunt Allie. Nana maintained Aunt Allie made the best chocolate one and Mama the best almond.

Aunt Allie’s Chocolate Pound Cake

3 sticks unsalted butter/margarine
3 cups sugar
3 cups cake flour – sift twice
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons cocoa
1 tablespoon vanilla
5 eggs
1 cup milk

“Get” butter to room temperature; beat butter til fluffy; add sugar gradually and cream til light and fluffy; add eggs one at a time and dry ingredients alternately with milk (Begin and end with dry ingredients.). Grease and flour tube pan. Bake one hour at 350 degrees.

Cheerwine is a cherry-flavored soda made in North Carolina. I adore this stuff. My family claims that I am addicted and need to seek counseling. I say “pbbbbbbbbtht” to all of them.

And just because I could…

CHEERWINE POUND CAKE

1 C. (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
1/2 C. shortening
2 3/4 C. granulated sugar
5 eggs
1 C. Cheerwine
3 C. unbleached flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. almond extract
1/4 cup Grenadine (I used Rose’s, but need to find one with a bit more flavor so that I can cut back on this amount)
red food dye (optional, but not really, since the cake is pretty with the dark pink swirl in it.)
Icing

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a tube pan. Cream butter, shortening and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. In a second bowl, sift flour and salt together. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture, alternately with Cheerwine. Add almond extract.

Pour 1 to 1-1/2 cups of batter into a smaller mixing bowl. Add grenadine. Mix well. Add enough of the red food dye to turn the batter a nice dark pink (only takes a drop or two).

Pour 1/2 of original batter into tube pan, then spoon the grenadine flavoured batter through the center, top with remaining original batter. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until cake is golden brown.

Cool cake in pan about 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cake cool completely on wire rack. Frost cake with icing.

ICING
1/3 Cup Cheerwine
2 1/2 Cups Powdered Sugar
1/4 Cup Butter
1/4 Teaspoon Almond Extract

Heat Cheerwine and butter together until mixture comes to a boil. Pour mixture over powdered sugar and blend until smooth. Stir in Almond extract. Cool slightly. Pour over cake. You may not need all the icing since you are drizzling it, but it is nice to have to swirl on the plate to serve.

My mom used to make me red velvet cake for my birthday until the red dye was discovered to be bad for us. I have a vague memory of standing on a chair in the kitchen in Lenoir and watching the red dye swirl out into the batter before turning the batter red. Glorious.

Years later, it was so exciting to have a red velvet cake once again, but Mama’s pound cake had supplanted the red velvet cake as my favorite dessert. And red velvet has made a return from oblivion. Everywhere you turn, there is a red velvet dessert: red velvet cheesecake, red velvet brownies, red velvet ice cream, red velvet whoopie pies…. Obviously I’m not the only middle-aged person out there with a fondness for red velvet cake. Mid-life crisis in dessert form?

What could possibly be better than to turn red velvet cake into a red velvet pound cake? I read quite a few recipes for red velvet pound cake before deciding to make my own based on Mama’s pound cake recipe.

So here goes….

Red Velvet Pound Cake

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup crisco (still looking for a non-soy shortening)
• 3 cups sugar
• 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 6 eggs, room temperature
• 3 cups flour, unbleached
• 1 cup buttermilk
• red food dye

Preheat oven to 325.

Cream butter and crisco together. Add sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla and baking powder. Add eggs one at a time and beat well before adding next egg. (If you don’t do this, it will change the texture of the cake, so if you want a denser cake, then add them all in at once and beat until just mixed. At least that is my experience.) Add flour one cup at a time, alternating with buttermilk divided in thirds. End with buttermilk. Now is the fun part where you get to add the red food dye. I added the entire wee bottle, because I wanted a darker red cake. lol But seriously, it’s totally up to you as to how red you want this.

Prepare a tube pan with butter and flour, pour in that lovely red batter and place in preheated oven and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

I’m going to pour a cream cheese glaze over the top rather than ice it.

Cream Cheese Glaze:

• 1-8 oz package cream cheese
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup milk (although you may need more)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla (or to taste, I wouldn’t add more than 1 teaspoon though)