Lottie's Chocolate Pound Cake
Take a close look at the picture below. Notice anything missing from the recipe?
And the answer is the instructions. Well, that is other than 350 for 1.5 hours. This is an issue that I touched on a while back regarding the latest printing of The Joy of Cooking. The editors fought with each other on whether or not to dumb down the instructions of the recipes, considering the state of American kitchens today.
This pound cake recipe comes from the 3 binders of recipes that belonged to my late grandmother, J.J. Lottie refers to my great aunt Lottie. I think the recipe is an interesting note about how women saw their own culinary creations when they pass them along to others. They didn't bother to write instructions like "mix at high speed" or "cream the butter and sugar together." They didn't bother with this stuff because they figured whoever they were going to give the recipe to already knew how to make a basic pound cake.
That said, I have to include the instructions here because I can't assume that everyone reading this will know exactly what to do. I based these instructions on a similar pound cake recipe I found on the web, along with TheWife's instructions.
Ingredients
- 3 cups sugar
- 3 cups flour
- 1/4 Tsp. Salt
- 1/4 Tsp. baking powder
- 6 TBSP cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 2 sticks butter
- 5 eggs
- 1 Tsp. Vanilla extract
- 1 cup milk
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a large tube pan with either butter, shortening, or spray shortenting.
In a bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, and cocoa. Set aside.
In a large electric mixer, beat the butter and shortening together until light. Add the sugar and beat on medium-high speed until the mixture is light and fluffy. Continue beating on medium speed and add the eggs one at a time, waiting for each to incorporate before adding the next.
Now add the milk and vanilla and beat until mixed through. Slowly add the dry mix a cup at a time until completely mixed in. Now beat the mixture for a minute or so until completely uniform and slightly fluffy.
Pour the batter into the prepared tube pan and bake for 1.5 hours or until a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.