Sometimes, I just need a slice of cake.

And when that happens, I bake one.  I like to bake, I usually have the ingredients on hand, and I prefer my own baking to any cake I can buy, even from premier bakeries.  What can I say?  I’m fussy about cake.

So, I got the yen for cake recently and yesterday I pulled out my well-worn edition of Joy of Cooking and looked up the pound cake recipe.

I was yearning for a simple, classic, all-American cake.

As I perused the ingredients, so I wouldn’t start mixing only to discover I was missing a key element, I ran across these words:

You may add brandy or “8 drops of rose water” to the batter.

And then it hit me: I happen to have a brand new bottle of Italian rose water on hand.  It was obviously time to break it out!

So, along with 2 cups of butter (no substitutes, Joy of Cooking demands!) and 9 eggs, I was off to the races.

And this is my first baking post.  I feel like Dorie Greenspan. Sort of.

Nine eggs!  This cake is rich and nutritious (if you don’t count the 2 cups of sugar).

No, I am definitely not Dorie Greenspan.  I am very messy.

But I got the batter made and put into these cute little green and white paper bundt pans I happen to have in my baking stash.

And filling those little suckers took some time, let me tell you.

But I got them in the oven and baked them for an hour at 325 degrees F.

 

And yowza, did my house smell great!

The little bundt cakes turned out just great!

And yes, one of them is missing in the photograph above.

And no, I don’t know what happened to it.  You are getting rather personal, don’t you think?

Well, okay, I cut into it.  I had to check the crumb.  Dorie would, wouldn’t she?

I’m not Mary Berry (the baker from England), but this cake is good!

And featured in today’s breakfast with some Fortnum and Mason Darjeeling tea I just happened to get for Christmas.  Not a bad way to start the week!

Here’s my recipe:

 Classic pound cake with Italian rose water, modified from Joy of Cooking

2 C butter, softened

2 C sugar

9 room temp eggs

4 C flour (I used all-purpose flour; I find cake flour too prissy and don’t like the texture it produces)

1/2 t cream of tartar

1 t salt

1 T vanilla

1 t almond extract

1 T rose water (8 drops were impossible to detect in the batter)

Cream the butter until it is light and airy.  Add the sugar slowly. Add the eggs, one at a time. Add the flavorings.  Add the salt and cream of tartar. Add the flour slowly.

Pour into prepared (buttered and floured) pans (loaf is the usual shape used) and bake at 325 degrees F for about an hour, depending on the size of your pan.  Keep your eye on the baking cakes, you don’t want to overbake and dry the cakes out.

The recipe makes a lot of batter, so depending on your pans, you’ll need a few.

Happy baking!