Pound Cake - the classic recipe

Pound cake has earned its centuries-long popularity. It owes its name to the traditional ingredient - one pound each of flour, butter, sugar, and eggs- which remain essentially the same today. As for all my recipes, I tend to air on the lighter side on sugar and butter. Instead of using all the butter the recipe calls for I used 1/2 cup sour cream in place of 1 stick of butter so that the cake remain airy and rich, not tough a dense. I also cut the sugar by 1/4 as my mom doesn't like it too sweet.

The recipe I have below is the classic recipe. I know no matter how pure and wholly satisfying the original, variations are too tempting to resist. You can feel free to dress up the classic version in creative ways, with sprinkled toppings, adding fruits such as blueberries, and easy glazes and saurces. Since I am making this for my mom's teacher, I am staying conservative to only adding peacan to the classic recipe.

Note that the below recipe makes a delicious tranditional pound cake, and it's also the base for inventive variations. Recipe makes two 5-by-9-inch loaf pans.

Ingredients:
-1 pound (31/4 cups) all-purpose flour
-1 tablespoon coarse salt
-3 stick of softened unsalted butter
-1/2 cup sour cream (non-fat)
-1 1/2 cup of sugar
-1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
-9 large egg (room temperature)
-1/2 cup toasted peacan

Procedures:
*Preheat over to 325 degree, butter two 5-by-9-inch loaf pans.
1) Combine the flour and salt in a bowl (see number 2 below)
2) Cream the softened butter, sour cream, and sugar with a mixer on high speed until pale and fluffy, for 8 minutes
3) Scape down sides of bowl, reduce speed to medium and add in the vanilla extract
4) Lightly beat 9 large, room-temperature eggs, and add in 4 additions, mixing thoroughly after each and scraping down sides
5) Reduce speed to low, and add flour mixture in 4 additions, mixing until just incorporated
6) add in the peacan until incorporated
6) divide batter between pans. Tap on counter to distribute and smooth tops.

Bake until a tester inserted into center of each cake comes out clean, about 65 minutes. Let cool in pans on a wire rack for another 30 minutes before removing from pans.


This is the end product. I didn't use my usual loaf pan because we had to give it to the teachers. So use the paper container I got from Daiso. Still works!

Wood Tavern

WOOD TAVERN is one of my favorite restaurants in this lovely college town – Berkeley. It is one of those restaurants I immediately fell in love with on my first visit and continue to manage to meet my expectation every time. So when I was scratching my head on where to take my mom for her birthday this year, Wood Tavern conveniently came to mind due to its consistency in maintaining quality new American style cuisine.

Wood Tavern offers a limited seasonal menu that rotates every season. I noticed, however, that while other dishes on the menu changes, there is one dish manages to make its way through the seasonal menu every season - the super thick cut pork chop, which is also my favorite dish here. I can't resist to order it every time I spot it on the menu. As I highly recommended this dish, both of my parents ordered this dish.

We started off with the house bread. The bread was decent. But I only had a small piece as I wanted to leave room for the meal


We order two bowl of aparagus soup as appertizers for my parents. I took a few spoonful and it was quite tasty. The cream, while adding to the pretty presentation, also added a nice kick to the soup so it didn't taste too greeny.

Ju 姐 and I order its famous pork belly to share. The pork belly was really tender and yet cripy on the outside with a nice glaze. I especially liked the plums and figs that went with it. It's really refreshing.

this is the famous grilled double-cut pork chop with bacon, corn, potato and masala cream saurce. The summer sweet corn goes so perfectly with the masala source. The sauce was so addicting that I tempted to dipped the bread in there (excuse my blurry picture please)!

Since both my dad and mom ordered my favorite dish, I thought I would try something new this time. I order the shrimp risotto, which turned out to be a nice surprise! The risotto was cook to perfection, al dented and the saurce had the perfect shrimp taste. One of the best shrimp risotto (in white source) I've ever had. Of course, those who knows me, my favorite risotto is still with La Siciliana Trattoria down the street. hehe!

Ju 姐 is a meat lover, so she ordered the grilled rib eye steak. It didn't say how many ounce this thing was on the menu, but from what it looked like..I believe it's at least 8 oz! The quality of the meat was really good

Dad and Mom and Ju Jei.

We order the warm chocolate cake for dessert the birthday cake (i originally meant to bake my mom a birthday cake but didn't have the time as I was in the middle of another S-1 filing :( )

The chocolate cake comes with a freshly home-made mint ice cream. When I said freshly made I really meant it made in house becase I could taste that they use fresh mint leave! I've never liked mint ice cream but this came in a pleasant surprise. I guess now I can't say I don't like mint ice cream.

Overall, the food was amazing as always. What I found out this time around that impressed me it's the dessert. I am sure I will come back for another special occasion..maybe when he comes.