Grandma's Pound Cake

Pound cake says summer and southern to me.
Yesterday I made my grandma's cold oven pound cake for a church plant committee meeting.  Really, you can't make a pound cake and just have it in the house to nibble on here and there.  There need to be a bunch of people around to eat it up.  After all, there's a good reason it's called pound cake.
The only redeeming quality of it is the taste.
And the enjoyment of making one.
And the thoughts of eating a piece in Grandma's kitchen.
It's worth it.

It's quite satisfying to beat (and beat and beat) that sugar, oil, and butter, watching it swell and fluff up.  I've heard that's the secret to getting just the right texture in your cake.

We added some strawberries and whipped cream.
Delicious.

Grandma's Cold Oven Pound Cake

3 cups sugar

3 cups flour

5 eggs

1 cup milk

1 T lemon flavoring (or whatever flavor you'd like)

2 sticks butter

1/2 cup oil

Cream the sugar, oil, and butter until fluffy, about 15 minutes.

Add eggs one at a time.

Add half of the milk and mix.

Add half of the flour and mix.

Repeat with the rest of the milk and flour.

Add flavoring.

Pour into a well greased pan and place into a cold oven.

Turn the oven to 325 degrees and bake for about an hour and a half.

Easter Baking

I spent most of the day baking one thing or another.
Pancakes for breakfast.
Homemade pizza for dinner.
And in between, I worked on pound cake and a carrot cake for dessert after Easter dinner.  We'll use the pound cake for strawberry shortcake.  I will say, though, that this is the first time my pound cake looks like a disaster.  Tastes good but it fell and is pretty crispy on the edges.    If the carrot cake turns out well I'll post the recipe.  It was easy enough.
After I made the cream cheese icing for the carrot cake, the girls and I were licking the beaters and spoon.  I barely heard it but Kayla said, "This couldn't be better."  LOL 
In the middle of all this I pulled out a very old Michael Card cd.  Wow.  It sounds old but what great lyrics.

Excited for Easter morning! 
It's my favorite holiday- so much hope from an empty tomb.

Favorite Christmas Recipes

To our kids-
It's Christmas baking day!  (again!)
I don't know what you'll remember about Christmas in our home.
Maybe the smell of sweet treats baking?
There are some things that you want to make every year- gingerbread and pretzel treats and our birthday cake for Jesus.
And some things that I want to make- lemon cranberry bread and Christmas cookies.  Just in case you are looking at a blog book twenty years from now and wishing for some recipes, here they are!

 
Pretzel Treats

Warm your oven to around 200 degrees.

Lay out pretzels on a baking sheet.

Unwrap Hershey Hugs and put one on each pretzel.

Bake in the oven for 2-3 minutes or until the chocolate is beginning to melt.

Remove from oven and immediately press an M&M (or two) on top of the melting chocolate.

Let them sit until the chocolate has hardened, usually several hours.

Mom's (Mimi's) Christmas Cookies

1 pound chopped dates

1/2 jar chopped cherries

1/4 pound walnuts/pecans

2 eggs

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 sticks butter

2 1/2 cup flour

1 t. baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

Cream sugar and butter.  Add eggs. Mix well.

Mix the dry ingredients and mix in a little at a time to the sugar/butter mixture.

Stir in the dates, cherries, and nuts.

Bake at 350 for 8-12 minutes.

*We have a nut allergy in our house so no nuts at all in our cookies.

 

Cranberry Lemon Loaf

 Beat until well blended:

1 8oz. block of cream cheese

1/3 cup softened butter

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla (we used 2)

Add three eggs, one at a time.

Stir in 2 Tblsp lemon juice

1 tsp lemon peel

Toss together:

1 1/2 cup chopped cranberries

2 1/4 cup flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

Add cream cheese mixture to flour/cranberry mixture until moistened.

Pour into greased and floured bread pan.

Bake at 325 for 1 hour, 15 minutes.

                             (We used mini-loaf pans and baked at 350 for around 30 minutes.)

Finally is our Christmas morning birthday cake for Jesus.  I don't have a picture but we make this each year.  Delicious!

Grandma's Sour Cream Coffee Cake

1 package yellow cake mix

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup sour cream

3/4 cup oil (scant)

1/4 tsp salt

3 rounded tsps brown sugar

2 rounded tsps cinnamon

4 eggs

Grease and flour tube pan.

Mix first seven ingredients with the blender well.

Add eggs one at a time.  Beat well after each one.

Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes in tube pan. 

Glaze while still hot with 1/2 cup sifted confectioner sugar and 1 tablespoon warm water.