Mother Knows Best, Pound Cake Edition

My mother and I don't see eye-to-eye on many things food-related. She likes iceberg; I like green leaf. She goes for frozen or canned; I prefer fresh. She likes processed mixes and sauces to save time; I prefer to make as much as possible from scratch. (She also has high cholesterol; I don't.) She's been known to serve food that was burned ("Caramel is burnt sugar!") or undercooked; I would sooner die. And she doesn't believe in preheating the oven.

My dad's in on it, too—they thought nothing of eating their wedding cake when it resurfaced from my grandmother's freezer twenty-five years later. Same thing for eating my grandmother's canned homemade pickles that were who-knows-how-many years old. "There's no expiration date on pickles!" my dad proudly exclaimed.

But there are some things that no one can make better than my mom. And one of her specialties is my all-time favorite cake: Lola's Rum Cake from her cookbook Sugarplum Visions: Old Christmases Made New. Though it's in a Christmas cookbook there's nothing Christmasy about it; I associate it with summer and her making it for me upon my return home from school or during summer visits.

I had never made it myself, for my mom has a theory that as soon as you do something once you'll have to do it forever after. For her this applies to cleaning fish and taking out the trash, two things which I've neatly sidestepped (but have become the de facto chores for my husband, who didn't have the benefit of my mother's advice). So why should I make the cake myself and miss out on the special occasion-ness of the treat she always has waiting for me when I visit? Well, it's been a while since I've been home and sometimes the stomach wants what it wants. So I decided to make it myself.

Every time I peruse a recipe I immediately look for things I would change about it. No matter that I've eaten this cake 5 million times and called it perfection. No, I in my snob-induced haze think I can do better.

The original recipe calls for rum and coconut extract, which to me sound like a lot of chemicals I'd rather not use, so they are the first thing to go (replaced with brandy and shredded coconut, respectively). It calls for shortening. Not in my kitchen! I cut out half the sugar, which I do as a matter of course in every recipe. And I decide to get all snooty and use cake flour instead of all-purpose. Remember, this is a cake whose flavor and texture and crust and aroma have been 100% perfect every time I've had it. 

You can guess what happened.

The cake was fine, really. Not great, not worthy of the title of my favorite cake, but fine. A little eggy, for some reason. A little dry. But certainly not a recipe I'd brag about or share with you.

So it was back to the original. I guess Mom was right.

I still didn't want to use shortening, but shelled out for the rum and coconut extracts, used all-purpose flour, and kept the sugar the same. Despite the eggy-ness of the first attempt, I didn't reduce the number of eggs (I suspect that some of my large eggs were actually jumbos). And the result? I got the cake that I crave.

Two important things to do here: 1) DO NOT preheat the oven (Mom's right again)—traditional pound cake recipes do not behave correctly in a preheated oven and will be horribly dry; and 2) bang the filled cake pan on the counter several times before baking to get rid of all air bubbles (which as you can see from the picture above I forgot to do).

Lola's Rum Cake

Slightly adapted from Sugarplum Visions: Old Christmases Made New by Susan A. McCreary

 1 1/2 cups butter

2 cups sugar

5 eggs

1 teaspoon each of rum, coconut, and almond extracts

3 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup milk

Confectioners' sugar (optional)

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time; then add extracts. Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together and add alternately to batter with milk. Pour into a well-greased bundt pan; bang pan on the counter several times to get rid of air bubbles. Bake in a non-preheated 325°F oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until crumbs on tester are just cooked. Allow to cool in pan slightly before inverting onto rack to cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired.

Salvaged Soup

Food traditions die hard, and the 4th of July is not the 4th to me without watermelon. But what do to when that hefty melon you oh-so-carefully picked out lacks that juicy taste so redolent of summer?

I thought I'd done everything right: picked a deep-green melon that was heavy for its size and had no visible dents. I guess I've just been lucky in the past, but this time I was snookered into buying a tasteless watermelon. Not exactly a great way to celebrate independence.

As much as I hate to throw out food, I could see no way to salvage this beast—it seemed this melon was headed to the compost heap. (If I had one. Which I don't.) But I decided to try and save it with a gazpacho, figuring I could add in enough other ingredients to make it taste good, whether or not it resembled watermelon. A shame, perhaps, but at least I wasn't wasting food. Watermelon gazpacho I've had before is often sweet and much more of a dessert; I was looking for savor and spice. To my great surprise the other ingredients actually uncovered the latent flavors of the watermelon, creating a great combo of sweet, spice, flavor, and texture. The result? Summer in a bowl.

Watermelon Gazpacho

© copyright 2008 Mallory McCreary/SnobbyAvocado.com

6 cups cubed watermelon, divided

1 medium jalapeño, half seeded

1/2 cucumber (about 4 inches long), seeded

1 1/2 large red bell peppers

3 whole scallions (both white and green parts)

1 celery stalk

Juice from 1 small lime

1/3 cup cilantro, plus more for garnish

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 6-ounce cans baby shrimp (omit to make vegetarian)

Nonfat plain yogurt

Mix 4 cups of watermelon, jalapeño, cucumber, red bell peppers, scallions, celery, lime juice, cilantro, and salt in a food processor until well combined with few chunks. Add remaining 2 cups of watermelon and process briefly (the idea is to have some larger chunks of watermelon).

Divide gazpacho into small bowls and garnish with a dollop of plain yogurt and cilantro leaves. Sprinkle with baby shrimp, if desired.

Serves 6 to 8.