The Weekly Kitchen: Memories of a Lovely Pound Cake
By ANGELA McRAE, Special to The Weekly
One reason I enjoy sharing my favorite recipes is that they often recall happy times with family and friends. That’s certainly the case with this month’s recipe, which holds a special place in my heart.
As some readers will have heard by now, my beloved husband, Alex McRae, passed away last month after a long battle with heart disease. We came close to losing him in 2022, but the Lord graciously gave us two more great years together. I miss him terribly, and as I’ve been reminiscing about the past seventeen years, I recall so many great meals we shared.
On our honeymoon, we enjoyed beignets and café au lait at Café Du Monde in New Orleans, his birthplace. On another trip to Louisiana to visit one of his longtime friends, I got my first taste of alligator. We got a kick out of eating brats at Lambeau Field while visiting my stepdaughter’s family in Wisconsin, and here in Georgia, my stepson often grilled chicken or pork that was so central to those great family cookouts that we probably all take for granted.
Here at home, I could bake just about anything sweet and Alex would compliment me on it and offer to do the dishes (“Since you cooked, I’ll clean up”). One treat he always enjoyed was the pound cake I like to make for family and friends. (It’s my plain-cake version of something called Grandmother Crisp’s Caramel Cake, which you can easily find online.)
This cake can be made in a 9 x 13-inch pan and topped with your favorite icing, and that’s how I made it for many years. Last year for my birthday, though, my friend Susan gave me a beautiful heart-shaped Bundt pan, a six-cup-capacity pan that allows me to make two smaller cakes using this same recipe, and I have enjoyed sharing the extra cake with friends. I didn’t know it at the time, but this recipe would be the last cake I made for my husband, and how fitting that it was heart-shaped.
If you don’t have a small Bundt pan, you might want to think about getting one—and baking a cake for someone you love.
A Lovely Pound Cake
3 sticks butter
3 cups sugar
5 large eggs
3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted three times
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1-1/4 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter, sugar, and eggs and beat well. In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients alternately with the milk, then add vanilla. Beat using an electric mixer or with a hand mixer until the batter “ribbons,” meaning it becomes pale and very thick. Pour batter into pan (or pans) prepared with cooking spray and bake 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If using Bundt pans, let cakes cool in pans for 10 minutes before removing.
