A Recipe from "Getting Near to Baby"

Mrs. Biddle writes:

My grandmomma used to make a pound cake would make you think you carried a brick around in your belly if you ate a sizable piece, and who doesn't eat a sizable piece, would you tell me that?

So I worked out this new receipt. It slices up to serve 16, but you can eat as much as you want, it sits real well with everyone.

It has the added advantage of being no worse for your waistline than store-bought cake. Some better, I imagine. No telling what they're putting in those store-bought cakes these days. So here goes:

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 325.

Grease your loaf pan. I have this little trick I recommend, though. Cut a piece of foil to fit your loaf pan like a sleeve and grease it too, and dust it with flour. Then, come time to take your cake outa the pan, you never have to worry about a little corner getting stuck. I hate breaking off the corners of my cake.

Once the pan's ready and the oven's heating up, put 2 cups of white flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, half a teaspoon of salt, and a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg into a bowl and stir it a bit with a fork. You don't want all the salt on one side of your cake.

And if you want to do something special for Christmas, you might add a teaspoon or so of them pink peppercorns, you'd be surprised how good they go down with a glass of sweet tea.

On New Year's I like to put in caraway seeds. Be generous with that teaspoon. And then there's poppy seeds, but that's another cake. The seeds, whichever kind you might decide to use, go into the bowl with the dry ingredients.

In your mixing bowl, blend 2 sticks of soft butter with 1 cup of sugar. Now, keep the speed down and keep pushing that sugar edge down with your spatula till the whole mess gets real creamy. Then move your speed up to medium or so, and let the butter and sugar whip a bit, that's the secret of creaming.

Meanwhile, you need 3 large eggs to go into this cake. Crack them into a cup, one at a time, and when you know the egg is good, add it to the butter and sugar while the mixer's still running. Let it get mixed in before you add the next one.

Then measure out 1 T. of vanilla extract and pour it in, too. Go ahead, it's not too much. Beginning to smell good already, isn't it?

Now you need a third of a cup of milk, as straight from the cow as you can git it. You're going to put in some of the dry ingredients from that other bowl, a little at a time, and if the batter comes to looking too thick too fast, trickle in the milk. Don't stop until you've used up both, the dry and the milk.

Now pour your batter into the pan and smooth the top. Bake it for one hour plus another ten minutes or fifteen minutes. Test the cake with a toothpick. If the pick comes out clean, your cake is done. Take it out of the oven and set it on a wire rack to cool.

Now I let my cake set about a quarter of an hour, about as long as it takes me to clean up my bowls and such, but if it takes you a little longer it won't hurt nothing. Then I turn the cake out onto the rack. This is where that foil comes in handy, I like to turn my cake right side up again so I don't spoil the top. And it sits there to cool. I peel the foil back for cooling but it's helpful again when I want to set the cake on a plate. It peels off real easy, just roll the cake on its side to get to the bottom. Go ahead, it's cool now and you don't have to worry about breaking off those tender little corners.

Invite your neighbor over for a sit-down on the porch and have yourselves a high old time.