add a splash of sunshine

I’m making an English Chocolate Trifle with Apricots and Raspberries today. The recipe calls for pound cake. I am not going to go buy a pound cake, when making these cakes gives me such pleasure.

Besides I need a reason to use the vanilla sugar that I have been staring at daily for the past 3 weeks.

The need to make vanilla sugar hit me a few weeks ago when Sunshine posted a recipe that called for it. So out came a mason jar, several vanilla beans and sugar. I’ve been shaking that jar of sugar for days and days. Clearly vanilla beans hold a lot of moisture.

Plain Jane Vanilla Pound Cake

2 sticks butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
3 cups vanilla sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
6 eggs, room temperature
1 cup milk
3 cups flour

Preheat oven to 325*F. Butter and flour one bundt pan or 2 loaf pans.

Cream together the butter, shortening and vanilla sugar. Add the vanilla extract. Beat in eggs one at a time, beating well between eggs. Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder. Add in flour and milk — in thirds and alternating so that you end with the milk.

Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 20 minutes. Test for doneness. Let cake sit on counter in pan for 10 minutes to cool before inverting onto cake plate.

Slice and serve with fresh fruit or enjoy with a cup of coffee.

After a week of pondering and some chatting with Sunshine, I am here attempting this again. My main problem was that the pear taste was coming mainly from the pear brandy. My pear sauce was just too wimpy. Yes, I know pears have a mild flavor, but for there to be no flavor? Unacceptable!

So I made pear sauce with bosc pears rather than anjou. I stuck with the cinnamon and ginger spices and a splash of lemon juice, deleted the water and remembered to throw in the vanilla bean. All simmered on the stove on low. After 30 minutes, I did a taste test and realized that the vanilla bean needed to be removed. So out came the vanilla bean and in went a tablespoon of sugar. The cooking continued. Another 15 minutes passed and another taste test. PEARS! I could taste PEARS. Hurray for me! The pears cooked another 15 minutes. I drained the liquid off and saved it in a bowl to use in the pound cake and mashed the pears.

Now to use my wonderfully tasty pear sauce in the pound cake. The recipe is going to be barely changed though. Just because my pear sauce is so lovely and needs to be given a shot.

Pear Pound Cake

2 sticks butter, room temperature
3 cups sugar
1/2 cup pear sauce
6 eggs, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 cups flour
1/4 cup pear brandy
1/2 cup liquid reserved from pear sauce

Preheat oven to 325*F. Grease and flour a Bundt pan or 2 loaf pans.

Combine butter, sugar and pear sauce. Add eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Sift together the salt, baking powder, ginger and flour. Add dry ingredients to the batter, alternating with brandy and liquid from pear sauce. Begin and end with dry ingredients.

Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Do check for doneness. Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes and then invert onto cake plate.

My neighbors Bob and Felice have banana plants. These plants are producing a LOT of bananas, and wouldn’t you know it, Bob and Felice are off gallivanting in Asia. That means a bunch of us that don’t have bananas ripening in our yards are taking full advantage.

Nancy and Kristy are eating them as is. No idea what Wendy, David and Bob E are doing. I don’t like to eat bananas as is… ewwww. Bananas have to be part of something. The only time I can handle the banana being the star of the dish without being sliced or mashed, is when it is dipped in chocolate, rolled in crushed nuts and frozen. Best summer treat ever!

But the sneaky banana snatchers Nancy and Kristy know that baking is something I like to do, so they gave me the bananas that needed to be used as soon as possible. So in the midst of preparing a Beef and Guinness Pot Pie, I started mashing bananas.

Banana Pound Cake

2 sticks butter, softened
3 cups sugar
6 very ripe bananas, mashed
6 eggs, room temperature and separated
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup milk
3 cups flour

Preheat oven to 325*F. Grease and flour bundt pan or 2 loaf pans.

Cream together butter and sugar. Add bananas. Add egg yolks one at a time and beat well after each addition. Add spices and vanilla. Add milk and flour to batter, alternating so that you start and end with the flour. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gently fold into batter.

Pour batter into prepared pan/s. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Test for doneness. Cool on counter for 10 minutes and invert onto cake plate.

When we lived in Maine, our backyard was trees, fiddlehead ferns, wildflowers and blueberries. It was an awesome backyard. This lady named Hazel worked for my dad at the newspaper. She identified some of the wildflowers. She introduced us to the various things you could do with rosehips and the fact that you can eat those ferns in the spring when the ferns were all curled up and looked like — you guessed it — fiddleheads.

We didn’t need to be told what to do with the blueberries. Everyone knows what to do with blueberries: blueberry muffins, blueberries in cream, blueberries on cereal, blueberries in a sauce, blueberries on pancakes, blueberry waffles, blueberry preserves, blueberry jam….

But the best dessert ever made with blueberries was this fabulous cake we were served at Noonan’s in Cape Porpoise, Maine. After stuffing ourselves silly on Maine lobster dipped in melted butter, our server brought out an unassuming piece of cake. The presentation was nothing to write home about — white cake with blueberries and a dusting of powdered sugar. No icing. Just one layer. White cake that exploded with the taste of blueberries.

That was the best blueberry cake ever.

I don’t want to try and recreate that cake. That taste memory deserves to remain pristine. I do want to combine two of my favorite comfort foods though — blueberries and pound cake.

Blueberry Pound Cake

2 sticks butter, room temperature
3 cups sugar
1/2 cup blueberry preserves
6 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup milk
3 cups flour
violet food coloring, if so desired
2 cups fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 325*F. Grease and flour a bundt pan or 2 loaf pans.

Combine butter, sugar and blueberry preserves. The batter will be a pretty shade of purple-blue. Add eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition. Add lemon and vanilla extracts.

Sift together the salt, baking powder and flour. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients alternating with milk. Start and end with dry ingredients.

At this point, the batter will be a not really appetizing shade of greyish-blue. I opted to make it a more fun color by adding a bit of violet food coloring. Purple is so much more fun than dismal grey.

Fold in the fresh blueberries. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. When cake is done, cool on counter for 10 minutes and then invert onto cake plate.

Dust powdered sugar on top if you wish. I’m thinking of serving it with a dollop of freshly whipped cream and a few strawberries.

Brooks and I were wandering thru the produce section of Publix today. I mentioned that I wanted to make a new type of pound cake — perhaps with pears. Brooks suggested oranges instead. Guess whose choice won out.

I bought 5 pears, came home and made pear sauce. I flavored the pear sauce with just a touch of ginger and added sugar sparingly. Of course trying to do this while fixing dinner was a bit of a challenge. Thankfully I didn’t confuse frying okra with cooking down pears.

This is the first version of the recipe. I’m not happy with it. While the texture is perfect and the base flavor is, the pears need to be stronger.

Pear Pound Cake

2 sticks butter, room temperature

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup pear sauce

6 eggs, room temperature

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1 tablespoon vanilla

3 cups flour

1/2 cup pear brandy

Preheat oven to 325*F. Grease and flour bundt pan or 2 loaf pans.

Combine butter, sugar and pear sauce. Add eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Sift together the salt, baking powder, ginger and flour. Add dry ingredients to the batter, alternating with brandy. Begin and end with dry ingredients.

Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Do check for doneness. Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes and then invert onto cake plate.

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.