My aunt sent my Grandmom’s old cookbook to me not too long ago. Grandmom doesn’t see very well any more, and she’s living in an assisted living home, so she doesn’t need to cook, and my aunt knows how much I enjoy vintage things and family treasures, and this cook book combines them both.
It’s The American Woman’s Cook Book. There isn’t a publishing date in the book, but based on the illustrations, I’d call it somewhere in the 40’s or 50’s. I haven’t come across any notes showing which recipes may have been her favorites to cook, but there are some splatters and stains on a few of the pages, so my guess is that those were her favorites. The binding is held together with duct tape, and the first few pages are falling out, so I’m also going to guess that this was one of her standby recipe books.
Well, Grandmom’s cookbook met Martha Stewart! I wanted to make Blackberry Pound Cake. Grandmom’s book has a recipe for Old-Fashioned Poundcake. And I found a recipe for Blackberry Swirl Pound Cake on Martha Stewart’s website. With my apologies to Martha, I don’t know how her recipe qualifies as a pound cake. Only 1 stick of butter! Only 1 1/4 cups of sugar! That’s not a pound cake. So here’s the real Pound Cake recipe just as it is written from Grandmom’s cookbook:
Old-Fashioned Poundcake
1 pound butter (2 cups)
1 pound sifted cake flour (4 cups)
10 eggs, separated
1 pound sugar (2 cups)
1 teaspoon vanilla
Cream butter, work in flour until mixture is mealy. Beat egg yolks, sugar and vanilla until thick and fluffy. Add first mixture gradually, beating thoroughly. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Beat vigorously 5 minutes. Bake in 2 loaf pans lined with waxed paper, in a moderately slow oven (325 degrees F). 1 1/4 hours. Makes 2 loaves (8 x 4).
From Martha’s recipe, I took the blackberry swirl idea. I used about 2 1/2 – 3 cups of blackberries pureed in a food processor with 4 tablespoons of sugar. I filled each loaf pan about half way, then scooped dollops of blackberry puree on top, then filled the loaf pans the rest of the way, followed with dollops of the remainder of the blackberry puree. Swirl a butter knife through the batter to create the swirl effect.
Enjoy with your favorite cup of tea!