Pound Cake

When our daughters were small, one of my favorite things about being their mommy was reading books aloud while they snuggled up to me on the sofa. The Little House books were a family favorite. The books are full of wonderful stories about the beauty and harshness of early American frontier life. They are also chock full of lessons if one is inclined toward that sort of thing. That's how we found the Little House Cookbook, because we were looking for supplemental materials to go along with what we were already reading. The pound cake recipe on page 204 is by far my favorite recipe in the whole book. It's based on the following excerpt from Farmer Boy.

That day they made ice cream again, and ate the last cake. Alice said she knew how to make a pound cake. She said she'd make one, and then she was going to go sit in the parlor.
Almanzo thought that wouldn't be any fun....
That afternoon he came into the kitchen to see if the pound cake was done. Alice was taking it out of the oven. It smelled so good that he broke a little piece off the corner. Then Alice cut a slice to hide the broken place, and then they ate two more slices with the last of the ice cream.

Farmer Boy

Just reading that small bit of Farmer Boy makes me kinda wish I had some little ones to snuggle with on the sofa again. Those years sure were magical, though it's also fun watching our daughters mature into women. Our four grown daughters will be home for Thanksgiving tomorrow - all four! My heart and house will be full.

Pound Cake

1 lb butter (2 cups)
1 lb sugar (2 cups)
1 lb eggs (8 medium eggs)
1 lb flour (4 cups)
grated nutmeg

That's about all there is to it. Cream the butter. Add the sugar. Add eggs one by one. Add flour bit by bit but don't over blend. Mixture will be stiff.

Spoon batter into two bread pans. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 and bake another 30 minutes. Remove from pan to cool.

The house smells so good when this is baking. It tastes so much better than anything you'd buy at the grocery store.  Sometimes I add a little rum or brandy to the batter (about a cup) but it's quite good without it. Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving.