Adventures in Cooking: Buttermilk Pound Cake

A few weeks ago, Husband and I went out to dinner and ordered dessert.  To my surprise, he ordered pound cake, which I had no idea he liked or was interested in.  My Granny makes a buttermilk pound cake that is fan freaking tastic.  Inspired, I decided to make the cake for the first time and we bought the ingredients (the ones we didn't normally have on hand being lemon extract and buttermilk) and a pan.

When I poured the buttermilk, it seemed off.  Namely, it was lumpy, smelled bad, and tasted bad.  Husband likes to premeasure everything when he cooks and set it all out nice and neat and then walk around calling it his mis en place after reading Kitchen Confidential.  I tend to measure as I go using as few measuring cups/spoons as possible since I grew up without a dishwasher.  So, I was already well into it when I discovered the buttermilk situation.  Having both chocolate milk and regular milk available, Husband suggested using chocolate milk as a substitute.  Other than the fact that the cake was brown instead of yellow, it turned out pretty awesome.

(Apparently, if you don't have buttermilk, you should use regular milk and lemon juice, which I didn't know and didn't think to Google.)

Some people like to cover pound cake with a sugar glaze, but I'm not one of those people.  I like the edges the best in pound cake, and a glaze ruins that for me.

Aunt Evanna’s Buttermilk Cake

1 cup Crisco

3 cups sugar

6 egg yolks

1 cup buttermilk

½ teaspoon soda (dissolved in buttermilk)

3 cups flour

6 egg whites

4 teaspoons lemon extract

Add ½ cup of sugar from the 3 cups to egg whites and beat until it stands in peaks. Add a pinch of salt.

Cream Crisco & the remaining sugar well. Add egg yolks one at a time and beat well.

Add buttermilk & flour alternately. Fold in beaten egg whites. Add lemon extract.

Bake in tube pan at 325 for 1 ½ hours or until done.