When I was a little girl, my Mother bought me a pair of black patent leather Mary Janes. I thought those were the most beautiful shoes in the world and I just loved them. On Sunday morning, as we walked up the sidewalk to my Sunday School class, she saw me looking down and admiring my shoes as I walked. Just before we reached the classroom, Mama admonished me not to tell anyone I had new shoes.
The minute we walked into the classroom, the teacher exclaimed, "Rocquie has new shoes!" To which I quickly replied, "No I don't." Mama said, "Yes, you do", to which I replied, "You told me not to tell anybody". My poor Mother could have probably crawled into a hole. She later explained that what she had meant was not to walk in the door, kick my foot into the air, and announce, "Look at my new shoes".
Now why do I mention this little story? It has to do with my hard learned lesson of not boasting. You see, I have a beautiful, shiny, new piece of kitchen equipment that I have been telling myself for the past week not to mention, much less brag about. My husband surprised me last weekend when he came home with a new stand mixer! He has wanted to buy me one for a long time and even led me to them in stores when we were shopping together. I have always objected that I don't have the space for it, I wouldn't use it all that often, I have managed all these years without it, and so on, and so on. So he took matters into his own hands, bought one, and brought it home.
For my new mixer's maiden voyage, I decided to make a Pound Cake. I searched out a recipe with instructions specifically for this type of mixer and found one at Southern Living. I posted a
Pound Cake recipe last year, which uses the traditional method, if you are interested.
Pound Cake
4 cups flour
3 cups sugar
1 pound butter, softened
3/4 cup milk
6 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
Place flour, sugar, butter, milk, eggs, and vanilla, in that order, into a 4 quart bowl. Beat at low speed with a heavy duty electric mixer 1 minute, stopping to scrape down sides. Beat at medium speed 2 minutes. Pour into a greased and floured 10 inch tube pan.
Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 30 minutes, or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool completely on wire rack.
The cake was very good, moist and tender on the inside, with a buttery, sugary crunch outside.
(The tablecloth in the pictures belonged to my Grandmother.)
