Need Pound Cake? Family Recipe Copied 18 Years Ago to the Rescue!

Old Fashioned Pound Cake

My mother called from the store and said, "I think your father wants pound cake. Would you make your father some pound cake?" Or if those weren't the words, that was the meaning.  I said  "yes' and then immediately thought to myself, "why don't you make the pound cake?"

I procrastinated all afternoon, until finally, at about 5 pm, I looked at the recipe my mother wanted me to use. First, it didn't call for butter. My mother had gotten butter at the store - all pound cake calls for butter, right? Not this recipe, it called for Crisco. Luckily, I had purchased some a couple of months ago. Then I read the rest of the recipe and the notes my mother had included with it.

My mother had gotten the recipe in 1996 when she and her oldest granddaughter visited Charlene Epperson Morris, a distant relative of my father's. Mrs. Morris, who died shortly after the visit, said it was a family recipe and favorite of her Papa's. The cake was so good that said granddaughter, a notorious picky eater, ate an entire slice.

Upon returning home, my mother dutifully entered the recipe in document full of family and favorite recipes (not always the same thing) she had created when my sister married in 1991. Here the recipe languished until January 2014, when I, under great duress, made the cake for my father. As the recipe had an excellent story attached for it and because the cake was easy to make and quite tasty, I quickly became un-irritated with my mother.

Here, just in case your father needs pound cake and you have no butter, is Charlene Epperson Morris' recipe:

1 cup Crisco
1 3/4 cup sugar
5 whole eggs  - at room temperature

Beat all together until creamy.

ADD:
2 cups sifted flour
2 teaspoons vanilla

Beat 2 minutes.     Bake in greased & floured tube pan(s)     1 hour  @  325° (degrees)

Happy Baking!