Tuesday, March 4, 2014

National Pound Cake Day - March 4th; Chef April Bloomfield


April Bloomfield is an English chef holding Michelin stars at The Spotted Pig and The Breslin. She got the highest score of a single competitor on Iron Chef America vs. Michael Symon. She describes her cooking as “Earthy… clean… vibrant.” She credits Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray for shaping her cooking.


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March 4th is Pound Cake Day, and my mother makes a really lovely pound cake with raspberry sauce that is so good. This is from our family cookbook:

Pound Cake
Ingredients:
1/2 lb margarine (or butter), softened
1/2 C. vegetable shortening
3 C. sugar
5 eggs
3 C. flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 C. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 tsp. almond extract

Directions: Cream first three ingredients together well. Add the eggs one at a time. Alternately add the flour/baking powder and the milk. Add the vanilla and almond extract. Bake in a greased and floured tube (angel food) pan at 350ºF for 1 hour 20 minutes. Cool 2 hours (NOT upside down). Serve with raspberry sauce.

Raspberry Sauce
Ingredients:2 10 oz. packages frozen raspberries

1 C. water
1 C. sugar
4 Tbsp. corn starch
2 Tbsp. lemon juice

Directions: Reserving the juice, drain the thawed raspberries. Combine the juice, water, sugar and corn starch in a saucepan, cooking and stirring constantly until thickened. Stir in the lemon juice and the raspberries. Cool slightly. Serve warm over pound cake. 


I also have a recipe from my grandmother, that she got from a friend (I think - I need to ask Dad): 



Unfortunately, this is incomplete as well. "1 teaspoon" is probably vanilla. "1 pk. powdered sugar" may be a box (pk. = package), but I'm not sure. No cooking instructions at all. If that's a 1-pound box, it's about 4 cups of powdered sugar, which is quite a bit more than my mom's recipe calls for. 
 

Available at Amazon.
 

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