cold oven pound cake ~

Southerners are loyal to their family pound cakes. Vanilla, chocolate, sour-cream, lemon, glazed or plain ~ or in my family, MaMa’s Cold Oven Pound Cake!

I saw my grandmother’s recipe ~ on a card in her handwriting – in my recipe box and knew I had to make it, exactly by her instructions. Though I will confess her recipe and instructions are a little different from the standard cold oven pound cake. We can’t decide if it’s because she was short an egg one day and so she used 5 instead of the usual 6 eggs. Or she was short on butter, and decided to add enough Crisco to make up the difference. And we have no clue why her baking time and temperature vary from the normal ~ but her pound cakes were always delicious, so why mess with a good thing? I followed her recipe! 🙂

If you’re not familiar with a cold oven pound cake, you do not pre-heat the oven before baking. Lighter cakes {layer cakes and sheet cakes} need a pre-heated oven to help them rise and lighten up as they bake. Pound cakes don’t rise the same way, and warming the batter along with the oven helps to create that wonderful golden crust while the interior of the cake stays tender.

We enjoyed this cake with strawberries, ice cream and whipped cream ~ in other words, our version of strawberry shortcake. This may have been dessert, or my breakfast, you make the call!

These are my grandparents from Bluwaterdad’s side of the family. Doesn’t my grandmother Geneva ~ or MaMa to the grands ~ look MAH-VA-LOUS?!! She was a wonderful cook and baker. She could whip up a pound cake as easily as I pour a cup of coffee. She used an empty Peter Pan peanut butter jar for measuring ~ or sometimes her hand for the flour ~ but her cakes were always delicious!

MaMa’s cold oven pound cake ~

3 cups sugar
1 & 1/2 sticks of butter
1/2 cup Crisco
5 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla

Butter, Crisco and eggs should be room temperature. Use hand mixer or stand mixer for batter. Cream butter slightly with mixer. Add sugar, then cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, and mix slightly after each egg to combine. Add 1/3 of flour and mix, followed by 1/2 cup of milk ~ continue, alternating flour, milk, flour and mix until batter is smooth. Add vanilla and mix just to combine. Prepare tube pan as needed {grease, flour, spray, non-stick ~ whatever your preference} and pour batter into pan. Place into cold {not pre-heated} oven and set to 275 degrees on center rack. Bake for 1 hour 45 minutes. Check doneness with cake tester/bamboo skewer. Cake should be almost done, and cake tester will not be completely clean. Increase oven temperature to 350 degrees for the last 10-15 minutes to brown the outer crust of the cake. Remove when cake is nicely browned and cake tester removes cleanly. Cool cake in pan for 15 minutes and then turn out onto wire cooling rack for up to 2 hours to cool completely. Cake texture will become denser ~ as a good pound cake should be ~ as it cools completely. Enjoy your southern cold oven pound cake plain, with ice cream, berries or whipped cream! It’s all good!

Butter, Crisco and sugar creamed until light and fluffy. Finished batter is smooth and silky!

Cooled for 15 minutes in the pan, and then onto a cooling rack for up to 2 hours ~ or until I can no longer wait for a slice!

Now I can’t stop thinking about all the other delicious things my MaMa baked ~ cakes, pies, brownies, blondies ~ and I’m on a mission to find the rest of her recipes. I see more baking in my future and more yummy things here on the blog. Just in time for all the upcoming events ~ from Easter and Mother’s Day, to the first cookouts of the season! Excuse me now, I hear another piece of cake calling my name ~~~