Pound Cake

Before this past weekend I had never successfully made a cake from scratch. I had planned on serving Strawberry Shortcake at a retreat this past weekend but didn’t want to use the usual white cake or the nasty sponge cake. I thought a pound cake sounded like a good alternative. Well, I made it and it was a big hit! So, I thought I would share the recipe with you!

Ingredients:

2 ½ Cups Sugar
1 Cup Butter, softened
1 Teaspoon Almond Extract
5 Large Eggs
3 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
¼ Teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Evaporated Milk

Directions:

Heat oven to 350-degrees. Grease bottom and side of 2 loaf pans, 9×5x3 inches, with shortening and then lightly flour.
Beat sugar, butter, vanilla, and eggs in large bowl with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for 5 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally.
Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl.
Beat flour mixture into sugar mixture alternately with the milk on low speed, beating just until smooth after each addition. Pour into pans.
Bake for 55 to 60 minutes. You will know it is done by inserting a toothpick and having it come out clean.
Cool 20 minutes and then remove from pan and place on wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours.

Now, you can serve this with strawberries and cool whip like I did. Another option is to sprinkle powdered sugar on it and serve just as it is.

Cooking Tip (a.k.a. Confession Time): I always completely read the directions. It was only until now that I see that I was supposed to use two loaf pans and not one. Now I know why it got so high in the pan and took longer to bake! Oh well!