Requested Pound Cake recipe.

[norgeway]

Recently I commented about the baking abilities of a Kenmore range, and how my neighbor,"Who was also a cousin" made the best and most beautiful pound cake I ever saw and tasted...Well, its just the same recipe most older Southern cooks use..But Wilma B Laney sure could make it better than anyone else I ever knew! Including her Aunt...who was my Grandmother, Here it is in memory of Wilma, Who was just like another Aunt to me, Wilma Beach Laney, 1912-2000.
3 cups flour.." I think she used Red Band which is no longer made.
3 cups sugar
2 sticks margarine
1/2 cup Crisco
6 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon.

Cream margarine,Crisco and sugar in a big Melmac bowl with a Avocado green Sunbeam Burst Of Power portable mixer....add eggs 1 at a time beating well with the burst of power button held down!..add sifted dry ingredients alternately with milk, beat well between additions, add flavorings, mix a minute or two longer on high speed...with the button held down, pour into a greased and floured tube pan, call Momma "My great Aunt and Wilmas Mother who lived in the upstairs apartment, and have her turn on her 1967 TOL 30 inch Lady Kenmore range to 350...Carry cake upstairs and bake 1 1/2 hours...For some reason this turned out a more beautiful and better cake than I have ever been able to make, the crust was beautiful, and it always rose above the top of the pan!Aunt Cordie Beach, My Great Aunt and Wilmas mother made almost as good a cake...and she used a 1950s chrome Dormey portable.

 

[norgeway]

As a child..

I loved to go to Wilma and Ralphs, they were always to me like an Aunt and Uncle, Ralph who died in 1982 was my fishing buddy, Two things Wilma made that without question were better than anyone elses I have ever eaten, that pound cake and her cornbread...I never figured out that she did anything different, but they were the best!..of course I knew better to tell my Grandmother that!!LOL....Her cornbread, as well as my Mothers was TERRIBLE!!!!!

 

[jkbff]

My mother's corn bread leaves a lot to be desired when she isn't focused.. (She some times mixes the baking soda and powder up cause her games are going on the computer...)

I am definitely going to try this

I need to find an angel food pan.. I wished I had Grandma's pans...

Reading this and some of the other food threads makes me sad that our current life isn't like what the past was when people actually stayed home and cooked. Everyone is too busy keeping up with the Jones'.

 

[polkanut]

<span style="font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 12pt;">I have my great-grandmother's dark tin angel food pan, and it bakes better than any other tube pan I've tried.</span>

 

[ken]

Well I guess I shouldnt even bother to make the pound cake. I know it wont be as good as I dont have a Melmac mixing bowl or an Avocado green Sunbeam Burst of Power mixer. And I definitely dont have a 67 Kenmore range to bake it in. It wont be any comparison.

Funny you also mention cornbread. I made cornbread over the weekend and followed Kevin's (vintagekitchen) advice about how his grandmother always baked it in a very hot preheated cast iron frying pan. I also cut way down on the sugar in the recipe as he also mentioned thats the traditional southern way of making it. I definitely liked it better. The hot pan gave it a nice crust. And I preferred the taste with less sugar.

Like Josh states something has been lost with the decreasing of traditional lifestyles. My mother didnt work outside the home and I was at home with her until I went to kindergarten at five. Some of my earliest memories are of watching her doing washing/ironing and baking. I used to set a foot stool in front of the stove and watch whatever was in the oven bake. The same as I would open the lid on the GE Filter-Flo and watch that do its job.

Thanks for the recipe Hans. Im going to make the pound cake and take to work as my boss is always asking for me to bring in a pound cake for him.

 

[ken]

Here it is. Thank you Wilma!

So I made Hans' pound cake last night. It certainly rose above the top of the pan like Hans remembered. Brought to the office this morning. I already sampled it and its very good. I used butter instead of margarine. And I used 1 1/2 t of vanilla and a heaping (if you can have such a thing with liquid) t of lemon extract. As you can see I dressed it up a little with some powered sugar.

 

[tomturbomatic]

That cake is also very good with butternut extract which is another old baking flavoring.

 

[ken]

Well the cake is a hit! Everyone here at work is saying how good it is. One coworker went into detail describing just how moist and tasty it is. And how the crust adds to it.

 

[circlew]

Oh, that looks so good!

I might make it if I knew where I put my mixer.

 

[ken]

Just noticed my spelling error above. I didnt used powered sugar on the cake. I used powdered sugar. Then again maybe thats why everyone seemed to have so much energy here at work today! LOL

 

[whirlcool]

Powered Suar ...

I loved it!

 

[tomturbomatic]

That's like a comment I read for Ruby Dee yesterday, "Rest in Power."

 

[jkbff]

So I bought a tube pan I'm gonna try this tonight or tomorrow.

But reading through the recipe, would one not want to preheat the oven or just turn the oven on and throw the cake in..

Experience is telling me to preheat the oven but one never knows..

 

[ken]

I always preheat the oven. I made the pound cake again last week but this time I used an angel food cake pan which was larger in both diameter and depth. This time the cake didnt rise above the top of the pan. Dont know exactly why but I thought the cake was better the first time when I used the smaller tube pan.

P.S. Just what are those tabs on the edge of an angel food pan for? Are they used to flip it over onto to cool? As I understand it with an angel food cake you invert the pan on a funnel to cool. And just why do you cool an angel cake upside down in the first place?

 

[maytagbear]

Yes, the "tabs" on an angel food cake

pan are for turning upside down and letting the cake cool. If the tube pan you have does NOT have tabs, invert the cake in its pan over a longneck bottle.

If a foam-type cake; angel food, sponge, or chiffon are NOT inverted to cool, they will shrink, shrink, shrink, and be very tough, ugly, and generally a sad waste of ingredients and time.

Changing the size and essential shape of a cake pan will change the texture/density, and usually not for the better. Dense cakes with fat in them, like the carrot cake I have posted here several times, can be baked successfully in either a plain tube (angel food) pan, a large (12 cup)bundt, or a 13x9. Baking in the 13x9 saves over 15 minutes in oven time.......

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[ken]

Thanks for the info Lawrence. What does inverting the pan to cool do for the cake in comparison to leaving upright to cool? Is it to reduce moisture loss?

 

[retromania]

Red Band

I did not know Red Band is no longer available. I generally use King Arthur. Red Band is what my mother used. And I do miss her and her cooking.

 

[norgeway]

Re Red Band..

My Maternal Grandmother used it exclusively,My Dads Mother used Southern Biscuit, Most people I knew used one or the other, I knew of a few people who used Gold Medal or Pillsbury for yeast breads, but not biscuits, I never heard of King Arthur until lately, its unbleached, and bad for you or not, I only used bleached flour, grey biscuits are not pretty!!lol.

 

[maytagbear]

Not inverted? Not turned upside down?

The will fall, go flat, be about half an inch high, be tough, be a waste of precious time and ingredients, Ken.

Lawrence/Maytagbear