Where’s my carrot?

Baking is my escape from stress, depression and, believe it or not, exhaustion. And that means sometimes, I bake in the middle of the night. My chocolate chip muffins were baked at 11 pm!

However, baking, I can’t ever get it perfectly. Too brown/toasted, too gooey/underbaked, to tough/inedible, or just plain not-the-way-it-looks-in-the-recipe-book.

Well, now I can say I have achieved perfection…with my pound cake!

What you need:

• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup fine sugar (TIP: grind your regular granulated sugar to superfine status with your food processor or grinder)
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanila
• lemon zest (I don’t know how much exactly, just don’t over it or else it gets bitter. I actually didn’t have lemon at the time I made this cake, so I used what was handy. Orange.)

What to do:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line 9×5 loaf pan with wax paper and grease (with butter or oil)
3. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together.
4. Cream butter until light in color.
5. Add sugar and cream with butter until lighter in color.
6. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
7. Add vanilla and lemon or orange zest.
8. Add flour mixture only until incorporated with wet ingredients.
9. Pour into pan.
10. Bake in oven for 50-60 minutes, or until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean when cake is pricked in the center.
11. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing from pan onto a wire rack.

Et voila!

Wait! Wait! Wait! I’m not ready to cut the cake yet.

Tomorrow I’ll show you how you can serve this that your kids will enjoy.

Get a hold of your EQ. You need it right now.