This very moment, I am listening to French Cafe music and taking a break from general cleaning of the apartment. I wrote this post the other day, and am happy to report the pound cake was actually tasty, even if a bit ugly. French Cafe music makes me feel like I don't live here, somehow ... it's so different and fun. Good Friday evening music! And, have I mentioned that I absolutely LOVE listening to French being sung? Reminds me of good times in South Carolina with Jenny...
So, I don't normally post about food on here...but it's also not every day that I make my great-grandmother's pound cake recipe, either. Since it was a bit of a momentous occasion (and two days til my new roommate arrives! Excited!), I decided to document it.
The beginning of any cooking adventure of mine lately, involves a text or phone call to one of my friends or family members, because apparently, in the past when I have cooked, I just figured I would remember the recipe for the next time -- after all, I have my favorite cookie recipe down by heart. Unfortunately, my memory does not work that way, and I forget everything, including simple chicken recipes. So, step one: Text Mom! Step two: Buy ingredients, and ask Mom clarification like "unsalted or salted butter?" I am not sure why I can never remember the most basic things like that. Perhaps because I can see how you could use both, so I forget which one is actually used on a more regular basis.
Step three: Wait. ...... Wait for the ingredients to get to room temperature. Unfortunately, that took a lot longer than I had budgeted time for, last night. No worries, I just had my morning coffee and then began baking this morning!
Step four: Begin mixing things. ...and creating the most awesome kind of kitchen mess, ever. I was quite fortunate that it takes an hour and a half to cook these things, because I sure had a huge disaster area of a kitchen to clean while the cakes were baking. Of course, being the cook, I was contractually required to sample the leftover batter that didn't make it to the pan, and the results were Oh So Yummy. I couldn't wait to eat this cake! Mostly, I am very glad that I have friends here in AZ to share this with, because otherwise I most likely would eat the...whole...thing... by myself. And, that would not help the avoidance of this Type II diabetes that I want to, well, avoid.
(I really can't believe I'm about to make a blog post about pound cake! Well, I suppose sillier things have happened...)
Step five: Clean up the disaster area! Turns out it wasn't quite as bad as I thought, because I created a homemade dropcloth made of blue paper towels (the shop kind, aka the best kind). So, most of the batter that escaped the bowl landed on the dropcloths. See, I accidentally forgot to pack my amazing stand mixer, and only have a small hand-held mixer. It works fine, but I am so used to the mixer sitting still and adding things into the bowl, that my sometimes-clumsiness was in fine form while I attempted to use the hand-held one. After a few spectacular slinging of batter, I remembered what actually worked, and had more success keeping the food IN the bowl.
Favorite step is the last one: Eat and share with friends! Yummy.
No comments:
Post a Comment