"Aunt" Grace's Pound Cake

I thought it only fitting for my first post to be a recipe from my dear "Aunt" Grace who passed away a few years ago. Some of my fondest memories of life involve sitting around her table with our two families at the beach and eating delicious food. She was a home-ec education graduate from Winthrop College, so she knew her way around the kitchen. She taught me a lot about cooking on my family's visits to her family's home. She and her husband met my parents as struggling students at Clemson College in the early 1950s and remained friends through all these years. Her daughter is like a sister to me, and we grew up calling each other cousin, as we do to this day. "Aunt" Grace and my father have both passed away, but the memories of the food and delightful times we all shared will be with me for the rest of my life. I dedicate this post to the two of them.

This pound cake is dense and very moist. I usually use 1 tsp almond extract, 1 tsp vanilla extract and 1 tsp butter extract for the flavoring. Butternut flavoring works well too, but it is delicious as detailed in the recipe with the lemon/vanilla mixture.

Sour Cream Pound Cake

6 eggs
2 sticks butter
3 c. sugar
3 c. cake flour (sifted)
1 c. sour cream
¼ t. baking soda (added to the sour cream)
1 ½ t. vanilla
1 ½ t. lemon (optional)

Let butter soften to room temperature. Cream butter and sugar with mixer. Add eggs one at a time. Add flour and sour cream alternately beginning and ending with flour. Add flavoring. Bake in a greased and floured tube pan for 1 hour 25 minutes at 325 degrees or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for ten minutes on a baking rack, and then remove from pan by inverting it on a plate and then again onto the rack. Cool completely, though it is good right out of the oven as well. Cover loosely with wax paper if you want to leave it overnight to cool.