Pound cake, to be precise:
Great-Grandma Cracker’s recipe turned out pretty well. Next time I’ll take it out of the oven five minutes sooner. I followed the old lady’s recipe to the letter, but I suspect our ovens have different ideas of what constitutes “350 degrees.” Still, it’s good.
The Green Bay Fighting Socialists are looking pretty good in the NFL playoffs. Downtown Abbey to follow.
What are you up to this evening?
Update: As promised, here’s the recipe —
Ingredients:
– 3 cups of all-purpose flour
– 1/2 tsp. salt
– 3/4 tsp. baking powder
– 2 sticks sweet cream butter
– 1/2 cup Crisco
– 5 large eggs
– 2-2/3 cups sugar
– 1 cup heavy cream
– 2 tsp. vanilla extract
Instructions:
Grease and flour Bundt pan and set aside. Don’t preheat the oven.
Mix butter, shortening and sugar until well blended. Sift flour, salt and baking powder together into a large bowl (preferably with a spout).
Break eggs into a small bowl and add to butter and sugar mixture one at a time, completely incorporating each before adding the next. Then add sifted flour to the mixture a little at a time, alternating with splashes of the cream and ending with the flour. After the last of the flour is blended, the batter should be smooth and glossy.
Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth out with spatula. Place in cold oven and set heat to 350 F. Bake for one hour and 20 minutes* or until toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean.
*Next time I make this cake, I’ll start checking it sooner. Maybe it’s just my oven, but I took it out nearly 10 minutes early and could have taken it out five minutes sooner than that, whereas Great-Grandma always cooked hers for exactly one hour and 20 minutes. My oven heats up super-quickly, and I suspect that accounts for the difference.
donnah
Your pound cake looks amazing! Yum!
I am watching the previews of the Golden Globes and will watch the show until DA comes on. Then I’ll switch back. We don’t have any recording options here, but I don’t mind missing some of the awards show.
The light must be weird out there. The women look like they’re actually made of plastic; very shiny, smooth, and kind of scary. Jennifer Lawrence looked like a wax doll.
MazeDancer
Is sharing the recipe outside the family tradition? Looks delicious.
Mike J
@donnah:
I thought Dark Angel was canceled a decade ago. Still, Jessica Alba in a skintight jumpsuit atop the Space Needle is always worth a rewatch.
Scamp Dog
I’d also like to see the recipe, too, if you don’t mind sharing it.
gogol's wife
Jane Eyre (greatest score ever by Herrmann) until 9:00 for DA, then repeat of Sherlock at 10. An embarrassment of riches.
David Koch
Golden Globes comin up . Then season premier of “Shameless”
great time of year for tee vee, with award season, playoffs, then Broad City and Better Call Saul return
David Koch
I see Cole is still jawing about the Stiller game on twitter.
henqiguai
Betty at the top —
Purchase, and use, a decent oven thermometer. Most (affordable) ovens don’t necessarily reach and maintain the control-set temperature.
JPL
@David Koch: lol.. Both teams needed to be sent to time out. A long time out, to think about what they did. The officials need to be sent to Siberia.
Randy P
I’m procrastinating on hanging some shelves by watching Youtubes. I have no idea how I get on the Youtube paths I do, but I’m currently looking at explorations of the Paris catacombs, including one found tape that may or may not have been from somebody who got lost and died down there.
Just watching a couple of seconds of somebody crawling through a narrow tunnel is triggering my claustrophobia. Can I say that I do not understand anything about the “sport” of spelunking?
On that score, did anyone hear about the amazing discovery of a new species of human recently? The discovery involved pushing their way into a narrow crack in some cave that they had no idea whether they’d ever be able to get out of again, or fall down a hole, or what. I’m excited by the science but who DOES THAT?
and…
Mike J
@JPL: The hero for Minnesota today was Walsh. He was the only Viking to put points on the board. Without him, the score would have been 10-0. He screwed up less than Teddy Ruxpin did.
Betty Cracker
I’ll get that recipe transcribed for y’all tomorrow at some point (from Great-Grandma’s crabbed cursive on the fly-leaf of a 1950s church ladies’ auxiliary recipes booklet — some good stuff there).
@David Koch: SO looking forward to Better Call Saul! Has a TV series ever been as beautifully filmed? If so, I’m not aware of it.
JPL
@Mike J: true. I think that with Walsh, it was shocking because the Vikings appeared to have the game.
Definitely different game than the sh.tfest that was last nights game.
ThresherK
@Betty Cracker: Thanks. I’ll be waiting!
Gravenstone
@Randy P:
Originally read that as precrastinating, and through what a neat trick.
superfly
Go Acme Meat Packers!!!
benw
Playing Clue with my kids right before bedtime. My attempt to ride on the Washington and Minnesota bandwagons seems to have crashed into a ditch.
Mike J
@benw:
Cheer for the Washington without the racial slur in their name.
benw
@Mike J: I pretend they’ve changed their name in honor of America’s first black president: Go Washington Obamas!
Virginia (fka Abo Gato)
@Betty Cracker: So excited for the recipe. Thank you, BC!
Anyone but Trump
My grandfather was a baker, and my grandparents would fly from Florida to Arizona every year to spend Christmas with us when we were kids. We would come home from school every afternoon (during the 1970’s) and would find the kitchen counter covered with tons of goodies; fresh bread, cookies, cinnamon rolls, and if we were lucky, the best pound cake I have ever tasted. When our Christmas package arrived from my brother in Wisconsin last year, he sent everyone one of our grandad’s pound cakes. Good times…
jeffreyw
Pulled a rather large beef out of the brine it’s been in for 30+ days this morning. Was going to cook it off in the oven but decided at the last minute to use the slow cooker. It spent about ten hours in there, and is now cooling in the fridge prior to slicing tomorrow. I made a bread machine loaf of light rye with caraway seeds today in anticipation of a Reuben tomorrow.
Mnemosyne
Watching the Golden Globes until we think of something better to watch. Neither of us has any idea who was nominated for what this year.
My new desk arrived and I need to build it, but first I have to make room for it in the craft room where it belongs. Ugh.
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: It’s not rye bread if it doesn’t have caraway seeds in it. That’s my opinion, anyway.
Wow, you can brine something for 30 days? Doesn’t that make it crazy salty?
WaterGirl
@efgoldman: One of my favorite zoo memories is going to a small zoo – I grew up with Brookfield Zoo within walking distance, so I was used to something bigger. We were looking at the small map of the zoo, and we were slightly mocking as we made fun of “Bear” instead of “Bears”. These guys couldn’t even catch a typo?
But it wasn’t a typo. There was only one bear. Small zoo, but quite charming.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Lincoln Park?
NotMax
Planning on ordering some heavy-duty silicone loaf pans very soon and testing various tried and true recipes to determine whether any tweaks or adjustments are needed to compensate for the different material.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: I use the silicone cake pans. They have not required any adjustment with any of my recipes.
NotMax
@Adam L Silverman
Shall be getting a restaurant grade silicone lasagna pan as well; anticipating a reduction in soaking and scrubbing.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Mine clean up real easy.
ThresherK (GPad)
@Adam L Silverman: Not to be picky, but does that mean no.adjustments from a recipe that starts with a metal pan or glass / Pyrex?
I’ve toyed with the silicone pans, especially cupcake, and can’t convince myself the sides, in air, and bottoms on a sheet pan, would work like my regular metal pan (Wilton or Chicago.Metallic) with the foil liners.
Adam L Silverman
@ThresherK (GPad): Yes. I’ve not had to adjust anything when I use them rather than a non stick metal cake pan or a pyrex.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Betty Cracker:
The BBC’s Top Gear has some fabulous cinematography.
e.g. Searching for Driving Heaven (6:39)
It helps if you like cars and goofy “presenters”, but it’s not required. Of course, Clarkson finally managed to get himself fired, so there’s no telling what the future holds.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who has never seen Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad)
NotMax
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Speaking only of more recent series, would certainly rate the look of shows such as Penny Dreadful and the Australian program Wild Boys as especially lush and cinematic.
ThresherK (GPad)
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks. Wife and I started the same course of antibiotics this evening, so her brownie appetite is just getting keener and keener.
Adam L Silverman
@ThresherK (GPad): Feel better. Other than lingering congestion, it seems I’ve kicked the head cold (knock on wood/top of my head).
Also, I make the brownies in a disposable aluminum pan. I find its easier to get them out. If you’ve got a silicon pan that should work well too.
Arclite
ArcDaughter (13) made Buche de Noel today. Came out really good.
currants
@ThresherK (GPad): I’ve had a little trouble with my silicone cannelé molds–especially the smaller sice. The outer ones cook more quickly than the inner ones. That may also be a function of my very poorly-functioning oven, however, which is definitely the reason I stopped doing any baking that requires careful temperature/temp changes. (The thing runs wildly hot, and increasingly hotter the higher the nominal temp. Hoping to have it fixed this month.)