A Northern Baker south of the Mason Dixon Line

Over the past few months of searching for the perfect pound cake recipe, I learned something.


Even though I am in Northern Virginia, it is the south and there are differences in taste.  Not only in the way tea is preferred, but baked goods too.

Tea here is made strong, and sweet.  To me it is teeth shattering sweet.  Then again, I drink tea with no sugar, and a slice of lemon.



Here is a bit of baker's trivia for you, pound cake was originally made by using a pound of butter, a pound of flour, and a pound of eggs.  That is why it was called pound cake.

Well, pound cake recipes are the same.  First, you kind of have to understand, to me a pound cake is dense (works better for making petit fours, and sculpting cakes), it has a very fine, moist texture, buttery, with a hit of vanilla, and just a mild sweet.  Something that balances out the sweet of frostings or syrups used.
One of the guys at work brought me his Mom's pound cake recipe.  He would go on and on about how his Mom made the best pound cake, and what sold it was when he told me when he had to take care of his Mom and she wanted pound cake, she talked him though making it.

So I bring the recipe home, and make it for some petit fours, and one for him.  I took a bite out of one of the pieces I cut for a petite four, and my teeth hurt it was so sweet to me.  All I could think was I must have done something wrong.  Must have lost count of the cups of sugar because of the chatter of the peanut gallery in the house.  Throw it out.  Start all over again.  Same result.  Ok, maybe I should just not bake today.
Sunday rolls in, and I make a pound cake to bring in for him, making sure I follow the recipe to a "T".  Bring it in and he is thrilled to pieces, cuts himself a slice, and I get told it is better than his Mom made.  He gives me a small slice, and the teeth go nuts again.  I ask him, is it suppose to be this sweet?  He says it it isn't sweet.  OK.

I then think back to when I made the Lighting McQueen cake for one of the Marines son.  I used a pound cake recipe, from a cookbook Southern Cakes, and it was sweet to me.  But everyone else said it was perfect.

So, I am still working on finding the perfect balance for me, and I have learned a few things from experimenting.  Using powdered sugar gives you a wonderfully fine crumb, but you have to double the amount of sugar.

I'm close to finding the right balance, just haven't perfected it yet.  So the search continues.

This is what Lighting McQueen looked like.  Not bad considering I never worked in fondant before, and I had never sculpted a cake before.  Lots of room for improvement, but like I said, not bad considering I had no idea what I was doing.