We’ve add two more laying hens to our small flock of backyard chickens and the extra eggs have me trying to come up with recipes to use them in. I got to thinking a pound cake would be good and immediately thought of Aunt Faye’s Pound Cake. I’ve told you about Aunt Faye before-she was Granny’s oldest sister.
I thought I had her pound cake recipe, but couldn’t find it so I asked Granny to borrow hers. You’d have thought I ask her for a million dollars. She said “Can you take a picture of it with your phone so you don’t have to take it with you?” I said “No not to where I could see it good. Can’t I take it? Or would you rather me sit down and copy it off?” Granny said “Well I’m pretty sure you’ve got my original recipe that she gave me.” I admitted that I thought I did too but couldn’t find it.
I think the fact that I had just took her to get groceries, carried them all in the house, and helped her put them up made her give in and say that I could take the recipe with me, but I better bring it back…like tomorrow.
Granny said Aunt Faye was such a good cook that she was always tinkering with recipes trying to make them better. According to Granny Aunt Faye came up with the idea of mixing plain flour and self-rising flour to make the cake easier to whip up as well as have a better density.
Aunt Faye’s Pound Cake
- 1 cup shortening
- 2 cup sugar
- 4 eggs
- 2 ½ cup plain flour (all-purpose)
- ½ cup self-rising flour
- 1 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Cream shortening and sugar together until thoroughly mixed. Add eggs one at a time mixing well after each.
Combine flours.
Alternately add flour and milk mixing well after each addition. Mix in vanilla.
Pour batter into a well-greased Bundt pan.
Bake in a 325˚ oven for 1 hour or until done.
In case you’re wondering, I delivered Granny’s recipe right back to her the next day…and she was right I later found her original recipe for Aunt Faye’s Pound Cake.
Tipper
Tipper, I love you. Thanks so much for your post today. What a blessing you & your whole family are. I am joining everyone in prayer for Miss Cindy. I can’t wait to get your cookbook!
Hey there, Miss Tipper!
If I don’t have any shortening on hand, can I substitute butter when making Aunt Faye’s pound cake?
Warm Greetings from the North!
Emily
Emilia-I think butter would work 🙂 Hope you enjoy!
Emilia-butter will work fine 🙂
Looks so good decided to try it Tipper! March 24th 2022
I think my Little Brown Hen and Dark Golden Hen have retired and forgot to mention it. They and the rooster, Captain Hastings, spend all their time chuckling and scratching and pecking, and they come running even from way out in the paddocks when I step outside and say chook-chook-chook, just in case I’ve got something good for them. But although there were a few eggs in early Spring, I haven’t seen an egg in weeks. I hoped one of the hens was making a nest and getting ready to set on a nice clutch, but now it seems unlikely. Suppose it’s time to think about adding more young laying hens if I ever want to make one of those delicious pound cakes!
Theresa, it actually uses Pillsbury yellow cake mix with pudding in the mix as the base. I have tried it with a gf box yellow cake mix and it was naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasty! So the recipe will live on in my mind the way Nana Sara intended it! With all. the. glutens!
Whoops,
I did see the vanilla but not the almond extract…getting old…just shows how easy it is for one/me to miss an ingredient when baking…
Thanks Tipper,
Oh Tipper, Thank you for sharing this recipe. it sounds delicious. Love pound cake, but have to get eggs as I’m out and it’s 90 degrees, so perhaps I’ll make one this weekend unless some night after work this week it cools off enough to risk heating up the house. We had no warm weather, just cold and rainy and then it went straight to summer heat…. spring was my favorite season…all one day of it this year. LOL
Sue have you tried remodeling the recipe for the Sour Cream Coffee Cake with gluten free flour? My daughter actually developed an allergy to gluten and can’t have anything with it in, but has gotten really good at substituting non-gluten flours in her baking.
Theresa
If my comments seem to indicate that I’m the only one cooking here its because I’m the only one cooking here.
Eldonna-Thank you for the comment! There wasn’t any difference in the recipe : ) And I found it right where I looked the first time LOL in my cookbook. I guess if it had been a snake it would have bit me!
Tipper,
I guess I’ve made thru the years many a pound cake of multiple varieties. Pineapple, chocolate, coconut to the Million Dollar pound cake. The previous taking a pound of butter and six eggs…I made one once that called for 12 eggs…however we didn’t like it much, it was “yeller” as gold…too much!
I love the Million Dollar pound cake…called because of the pound of butter six eggs and four cups of flour, etc. Does also have vanilla and almond extract in it. I notice your pound cake doesn’t call for any vanilla extract…Can’t say that I have seen many recipes for pound cake that doesn’t at least have a 1/2 teaspoon in it…but what works…works! I’d say just by the description of the recipe this one goes way back in simpler times…but also wondered why it called for shortening instead of lard…as lard was used in old pound cake recipes…
My Mom was real stingy about sharing her recipes…to the point she would sit down and write them out for someone herself rather than give them the recipe to be returned. A lot of times she would never tell where she got the recipe either or if it was one of her own. She had a lot of her own creative recipes too. When she got recipes from her sisters, I heard her complain one time that she was sure an ingredient was left out as when she made it, it just didn’t taste the same. Those sisters all were excellent cooks and very competitive with their precious, tasty vittles! Ha A mountain thing, I think!
I am trying your pound cake- aka Aunt Faye’s Pound Cake. A really simple recipe and I wonder if one could substitute part butter for the shortening? I have done it in other recipes.
Thanks Tipper for the recipe
PS…I have two quarts of Rattlesnake Pole beans a’cookin’ they smell so good, but guess it’s the seasonin’ meat and Vidalia onion I added as always. Just before I pull them off the stove I may add a peeled tater or two to the pot….Ken’s Nantahala beans are just now makin’!
We’ve had yeller squash casserole, a handful of tomatoes, zucchini and onions…yummm, the summer lunch and supper fair is just beginnin’….
I love recipes written by hand. I have a few from my Mummo (who used very scientific terms like “a smidge of ” this, or a “good lot” of that) and some from my Aunt Jean Hyatt Richardson who would describe things as “the consistency of good oatmeal.” I seem to be able to figure out what a “smidge” or a “good lot” is because I spent so much time baking with my Mummo. When I read these recipes, I have to smile (and swallow hard) because I can almost feel them standing there with me and hear their voices.
Tipper,
I make a lot of cakes, bunt style, and your Aunt Faye’s Pound Cake looks delicious. I’ve often wondered about mixing plain and self-rising flours, but now I know better.
I guess I’ve eaten as many Homeade Eggs as anyone, but now I get those white eggs from the grocery store. It’d take me awhile to go back, but I’m sure they’re better for you. …Ken
Looks simple delicious. Wonder why no butter?? Or salt. I put salt in everything.
This seems like my Aunt Evelyns orig recipe too. She was very proud of it.
I have never made the ‘ Pound’ of each ingredient recipe. Need to try the ‘real POUND’ cake before I’m unable to do it.
You all enjoy that!!! Thanks .
I noticed the recipe is written in cursive. That’s like a secret code us old folks have that the younger ones can’t understand.
I wonder if butter could be used as a substitute for Crisco. I know butter is bad for you but Crisco and margarine are worse. Milk and eggs used to be bad for you too (according to the ?experts?) but now are considered by some to be superfoods. Refined white sugar is still bad for you but that could change any minute now.
I don’t have a bundt pan. I wonder if the cook time would change if I made it in a loaf pan.
Actually there is a bundt pan here but it is nonstick and SOMEBODY has decided to cut THEIR cakes in the pan and the surface is all cut up. I like my pound cake without flecks of TEFLON.
Your cake looks delicious! I am going to try that recipe. I have old recipes written by my mother and old Watkins Cookbooks that belonged to both my grandmothers and I would not part with them for love nor money either. I was concerned about that recipe til I read you did take it back to her. lol
If itada been me, ida left Granny at the grocery store til she handed over the recipe. I think its called exhortation or blackmail or something like that. It might be illegal but you can get away with it cause your own momma ain’t gonna call the law on you. Will she?
My mother was protective of her recipes too.
I love pound cake and my wife makes a good one that is a recipe from her grandmother. When friends or other acquaintances are ill or have family illness you can count on some food and one of Paula’s Perfect Pound Cakes.
That’s my name for them.
I like to butter a slice and toast it very lightly and have with my coffee for breakfast. Yum!
I think I’ll put in a request for one now that you have me thinking about it.
The one in your photo looks good too and I would be willing to try a slice or two if you could send it to me! : )
I sure would have liked to have a couple of your fresh eggs yesterday. Unexpected company popped in for breakfast and left two eggs in my carton. The buttermilk pie I had been craving called for three eggs and I didn’t feel like running back to the store. Aunt Faye’s pound cake looks delicious. I used her recipe for chocolate pie and took it to a woman’s club a few years ago. One girl stood up and asked who brought the homemade pie. She said it was the best chocolate pie she had ever tasted and just had to have the recipe. I copied it for her and made sure I left Aunt Faye’s name in the recipe title.
The cake looks wonderful. Now what is the difference between the recipe you got from Granny and the one you had at home and found?
Also, where did you find your copy of the recipe?
Tip, I have an old Pound Cake recipe that is similar to yours. I can’t remember for sure who I got it from but I made hundreds of cakes from it. I varied it, sometimes adding lemon juice and sometimes nutmeg. It was always a hit.
I like your new chickens. I met them this past week. They are much calmer then the previous chickens, especially the rooster.
I have my beloved Paternal Grandmother’s (Nana Sara) recipe for her Sour Cream Coffee Cake written in her own hand. Sadly, I can no longer enjoy it because of gluten intolerance, but I will not give up that recipe for love nor money. So I get how your Granny feels about letting you borrow Aunt Faye’s recipe. Good thing you took it back to her in quick order! And I’m glad you found the original.