Sour Cream Pound Cake

Sour Cream Pound Cake
Dorcas Annette Walker

My first introduction into making a home-made pound cake came from an old southern cook in North Carolina, where my husband and I pastored a small rural church in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Mamie Miller loved to cook and often invited us to her home for Sunday dinner. One such Sunday Mamie served her home-made pound cake for dessert. I instantly fell in love with the firm, silky texture of her home-made pound cake and asked for her recipe. For years I’ve baked a Five-Flavored Pound Cake. Recently, on another Sunday at the Newport Nazarene church, where we were having a pitch-in dinner I tried one of many desserts. The light spongy cake intrigued me and I couldn’t believe when Sherry Strange told me that it was a Sour Cream Pound Cake. I had to get the recipe and try it for myself.

The pound cake is a British creation that dates back to the early 1700’s. Pound cakes became famous and were so named because the ingredients contained one pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. No leaveners were used except for the air whipped into the batter to help make it rise as the cake slowly baked. These dense cakes became popular because it was easy to remember and made it simple for those who couldn’t read. By the mid 1800’s pound cake recipes began to deviate slightly form the original recipe to make a lighter cake. In the 1900’s baking powder and soda was added. Today pound cakes use many different proportions of the same ingredients as the original formula to produce lighter cakes. Pound cakes are very versatile and are often used as the base of making trifles, bread pudding, and French toast. Some lightly toast pound cake slices and serve warm with ice cream. The pound cake can be frozen for up to a year to use for last minute desserts. I discovered over fifty recipes for pound cakes ranging from a Million Dollar Pound Cake, a Twenty-Five Flavored Pound Cake, to a Sweet Potato Pound Cake. One Dump Pound Cake recipe called for mixing the batter for twenty minutes before baking. All you need is one basic pound cake recipe and with various additives and flavors you can create any kind of pound cake.

My Five-Flavor Pound Cake recipe calls for two sticks of butter (or half shortening & butter), two cups of sugar, four eggs, one cup of milk, one teaspoon of: lemon juice, vanilla, cocoanut, orange, and almond flavoring, which is beaten together until creamed. Slowly add two cups of plain flour and one cup of self-rising flour beating thoroughly with each addition until the batter is fluffy. Pour into a bunt pan and bake at 350º for one-and-one-half hour until done. Dust with powdered sugar.

The Sour Cream Pound Cake is a lot simpler, quicker, and easier to make and has a softer texture with a distinctive buttery flavoring that melts in your mouth. The one difference is that this pound cake needs to be refrigerated after a day whereas the old-fashioned version doesn’t. This Sour Cream Pound Cake recipe takes about five minutes to prepare (not counting the baking time) and makes one large cake that serves around sixteen.

Sour Cream Pound Cake

Mix together on high speed for three minutes:
1 butter cake mix
16 oz container of sour cream
4 eggs
½ c oil
¼ c water
Pour into a greased tube pan and bake at 350º for one hour. May garnish with powdered sugar!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a freelance writer, author, columnist, and photographer from Jamestown, TN. If you have any cooking tips or favorite recipes you are welcome to contact me by email at: dorcaswalker@yahoo.com. For more information about the Walker family and Dorcas’ books check out her website at: www.dorcasannettewalker.com or htpp://dorcasannettewalker.blogspot.com for other Creative Mountain Cookin recipes.