Butter Pound Cakes

Baking Pans that Worked

2010-01-10T07:49:00.000-05:00

My mom used what I call standard baking pans for her butter pound cakes. I only saw her use three types of pans. These long loaf pans the round cake pans and round layer pans.

She used loaf pans to get those perfectly sliced cake slices. The round pans were used for baking whole cakes and selling them as wholes or half’s. I remember she use to use the round pans that where two part, the whole center piece lifted out. Time proved to bring a few changes once more because; she eventually started using only the one piece round cake pans. I think the other style would leak sometimes. Lastly she used the round layer pans for making huge slices with various types of fillings in them. Those slices were sometimes 3 layers high.

I never saw her use Teflon pans and not being a baker myself I would think that Teflon non stick pans would be perfect for baking any cake. Apparently not, because for all the years my mom baked those delicious cakes, she used Crisco lard and sprinkled flour around the pan for coating. Many years later she started using Pam baking spray. What a change that was.

My mom was very consistent with what she baked and how she did it. It was amazing to see after many years being raised around her baking, she seldom deviated from what she said worked for her. She would listen to your ideas but when it came down to it she always stuck with what worked for her.

Her baking pans are as much a sentimental keepsake as her mixers. When you look at her baking pans you see her creating her masterpiece of love, her gift to the world in her kitchen every week.

Hand Mixers vs Standalone

2009-12-31T13:02:00.009-05:00

Mom started out using hand mixers and the motors gave out on all of them eventually. In those early days of baking her butter pound cakes it took her longer to mix the ingredients. As the years passed she started buying different types of mixers and, eventually going right back to the old 2 blade manual hand mixer because the other never lasted or worked quite well.

When she started selling her butter pounds at Capitol Hill, Eastern market in DC and then at the Benning Road market in DC, request for more butter pound cakes grew. She decided she had to find a mixer that would make her life more easy once and for all. She said she needed to be able to mix and bake more than one cake at a time.

I remember her coming home one day with this nice pretty mixer. She started baking cakes so fast that instead of it taking her 5 days to bake for her customers it only took her 2 days.

She eventually went out and bought another one just like it. One was a red KitchenAid mixer. She told me she was able to mix 2 cakes in it at one time and the other was a small white KitchenAid mixer that mixed 1 cake at a time.

I can still hear the sound of her mixers going when I would call her on her baking days. I don't ever remember her having to replace these mixers because, for as long as I can remember there has been the big red and the little white mixers in her kitchen in their designated places.

Butter Pound Cakes

2009-12-30T19:43:00.004-05:00

My mom started selling her butter pound cakes at various markets in Washington, DC back in the 80's up till this year. Before that for years she would bake them and give them away.

I have never been a baker. This is kind of surprising to me because my mom use to bake the most yummylicious butter pound cakes every week. As a child growing up I couldn't tell you at that time which tasted best, licking the batter left in the bowl or the actual cake itself.

Moms butter pound cake batter was so creamy and buttery that other than chocolate cakes I'm not a big fan of other kinds of cakes today.

Although my brothers and I never put a cake on the scale I believe 1 cake had to weigh at least 10 pounds easily but maybe more like 20 thinking again. One slice was equivalent to 3.

Anyway I will be blogging about some of her recipes, tricks and tips.