Recipe #3: "Family Style" Orange Pound Cake

I was super stoked to be making my first pound cake!  I checked with Suze (Susan Purdy, author of Pie in the Sky) just to make sure there wasn’t some disaster waiting to happen as I first attempted this feat at altitude.  She said that any pound cake recipe that she has tried below 7,000 feet has not required any changes…..hmmm…..part of me feels like I am jinxing myself when I read things like this BEFORE I make the dessert at hand.  As I read this, I was taken back to the cheesecake note from Ina…..

The pound cake kind of required a lot of detailed work (grating the zest of 6 oranges, juicing the oranges, making the syrup to pour over the two loaves, and then making the glaze for both of them, etc.)  for the not-so-pound-cake that came out.  Don’t get me wrong, I thought it tasted super great!  I got a lot of compliments on it, it was very moist (which is always a hit), and I think the best compliment came from my hubby when he said that it made him think of something from his childhood (he couldn’t put his finger on it though).  I, being hard on myself as usual, thought that it just didn’t have the pound cake consistency I was looking for.  Ah well.

My new contessa wondering:  Sifting???  Really???  I love my antiquey-looking sifter, but I wonder what difference it really makes, and what essentially is the purpose of doing it.  Am I alone on this one?

Final note: I think there is something to be said for getting your cookbooks smudged, smeared, or splattered with whatever you are making.  At the end of the recipe, I noticed that my orange pound cake pages had orange juice and zest sprinkled about.  To me, it somehow makes the book feel more authentic knowing that the kitchen got a little messy with the effort put into a new favorite, an oldie-but-a-goodie, or even a complete culinary catastrophe.