pound cake

butter butter... and more butter.



traditionally, the pound cake recipe calls for 1 lb of butter, 1 lb of sugar, and 1 lb of flour, hence its name. pretty basic. pretty easy. the pound cake is one of those high butter to flour ratio cakes, creating a dense and buttery treat for those occasional cravings. the recipe has been modified over the years to alter the consistency and taste, and really, who wants to eat a pound of butter?

but THIS... this pound cake recipe is heavier than most on the butter and def Paula Dean worthy. don't get me wrong, i'm sure Paula's a lovely lady whose recipes are well thought out and delicious but when her name comes up, the first thing i think of is a stick butter. but i digress...

After 2 different attempts at slightly varied pound cake recipes, i tried the Entenmann's Pound Cake recipe found here. i must say, after my share of Entenmann's as a kid, i am pretty well acquainted with the buttery cakes, and the final result of this recipe came pretty close.

modified recipe calls for:

1/2 lb (2 sticks) butter
2 cups of powdered sugar
3 eggs
1 Tbsp of vanilla extract
1 2/3 cups of flour
1/2 tsp salt

heat oven at 325 degrees. spray loaf pan with Pam or butter.

beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. add vanilla extract. add eggs one at a time alternating with the flour and beat until just incorporated. i added a 1/2 tsp of salt (the orginal recipe calls for none) as salt tends to bring out the flavors in most sweet foods. be sure NOT to over mix the flour into the batter or you'll get a really dense and dry cake.

pour batter into prepared loaf pan and bake for 40 minutes or until a tookpick comes out with a few crumbs on it.

excellent served with fresh strawberries (and vanilla ice cream, if you have some)! i probably won't be baking this again though. it was DELICIOUS but too buttery. most definitely not a healthy choice of foods but what baked good is healthy?

hmm.. perhaps that is my next mission: to make tasty AND healthy baked treats!

a stranger in the sky

9:03pm | 2009.03.10

i look up at the sky every night
to see the wax and wane of the moon.
all at once mysterious, beautiful, frightening...
the moon never seems to hold a consistent form.
i think it's what frightens me.
the ever changing and uncertain
lack of control
ever luminous until
it sets out again only to return
changed
different
changed
inconsistent
a stranger in the sky i knew
a form i hadn't known before.

weekend musings

it looks like spring has sprung, quite suddenly, might i add. just at the beginning of the week, we had 6 inches of snow on the ground making it seem like March was going to be a frigid month here in Virginia. a few days later, we hit a high of 79 degrees! although i do want to welcome the wonderful warm temps, a part of me is a little disturbed that our climate has reached such extremes.

Monday, March 2, 2009 & Friday, March 6, 2009

it's a little overcast as well as a bit humid but with the change in temperature, signs of spring are surely here. it seems to be mating season as i was woken this morning by the squawking of birds outside my window. the cardinals sound the most feisty today.

Above & Below

let's just hope this spring weather decides to stay with us for a little while before the summer heat kicks in. enjoy!

food for thought...

People are often unreasonable and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you.
Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.
Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

-- Mother Theresa

yam yam yam

one of my earliest memories is of the smell of roasting yams on a frigid winter day in Korea. you would turn the corner and the sweet, earthy, pungent smell would hit your senses making you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. well, that's how i remember feeling at least. that scent still brings back memories of that time period, the neighborhood, the kids that i'd play marbles with on a dirt path, and the sheer joy of having a sweet, steaming hand warmer between my cold little fingers....

it's been snowing on and off all day so i thought i'd revisit that memory by roasting some in our oven. the whole house immediately filled with the smell of sweet goodness.



(these are def. yams... i think?)

on a similar note, i've been trying to figure out the difference between a sweet potato and a yam. apparently, these 2 bulbs are not even related!? the sweet potato, which is part of the morning glory family, usually has a thinner skin with a starchy flesh much like a potato. what we all know in the U.S. as yams are thicker skinned with a orange, moist and sweet flesh. however, these "yams" are a mysnomer and are actually also sweet potatoes. (so i'm still trying to figure out what the HECK a yam is)

the word "yam" is of African origin -- njam, nyami, djambi -- meaning "to eat."

i wonder if any of these have any relation to the word "yum" or "yam yam yam" -- the sounds that Korean children make to refer to eating something particularly yummy... hehe... perhaps. ^^