Baking the Butternut Pound Cake

This recipe is oversized and will not fit in a Bundt or 10″ tube pan.  My pan is 15″ long and three inches wide and as you see in the picture it looks like it’s more than 40 years old (and it is).  I bought it from a bakery supply store in Atlanta for $2.00. I have a new pan just a little shorter and wider; however, I can’t bring myself to use it — this old one looks really bad, but it does the job.

 

Now remember I told you up front I’m not even a distant relative of Julia Childs of Paula Deen.  I’ve baked several hundred of these babies and they always have a crack in the top, even though I bake at 300 degrees for two hours.  Forget about the crack, it’s the flavor that counts.  This recipe came to me through my sister and it came to her from Mrs. Ann Whitten of Pell City, Alabama.

John worked for Lockheed for 34 years and many of those years his lunch contained a piece of this cake.  Also, when some of the family would be going on vacation, they’d ask for a cake.  The cake travels well.  One time I gave our preacher’s family a cake to take to Florida with them and the next week the son told me, “Daddy and I would have starved if it hadn’t’ been for that cake.  We ate it for breakfast.” Any cook likes to hear words such as those.

Billie’s Butternut Pound Cake

1 lb. butter or margarine                             3 1/2 cups plain flour
1 cup Crisco                                                    2 tsp. butternut flavoring
2 2/3 cup sugar                                             1/2 cup cream
8 eggs                                                               Pinch of salt

Cream softened butter and Crisco together and add the sugar — beat well.
Add eggs two at a time, beating well after each.  Alternate flour and cream.
Add flavoring last.  Pour in well greased and floured pan.  Bake at 300 degrees for 2 hours.  Cool 10 minutes in the pan before dumping.

NOTE:  I use double yoke eggs — a gift from a chicken farmer.  Also I seldom have cream on hand and I usually have Pet Milk, so I substitute.