February 2013 Challenge: Share your great DESSERT recipe!

 It's the month of love and we love dessert,   our group scraps of color will share one, two or three great dessert recipes.

 Today I have selective my Grandmothers 1 2 3 Cake recipe for my first great shared recipe.

The pound cake, most known as a rich cake, originally contained a pound of each of the main ingredients, including flour, sugar, and butter. That’s where the pound cake gets its name.

When I was a young girl, my grandmother didn't have a mixer she would beat this cake by hand and folded the dry ingredients in a little at a time before baking. She said it needed 300 strokes so we used to count as she mixed. She would bake it during the week for Sunday dinner, also she would bake one for my dad's Friday Night Fish Fry.

123 CAKE

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened

2 cups sugar

3 cups flour sifted (to day we use Swans Down Cake Flour)

4 eggs

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Glaze:

1 cup confectioners' sugar

1 tablespoon bourbon

1 teaspoon orange zest, grated

1 - 2 tablespoons orange juice concentrate, thawed

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Sift flour with baking powder and salt. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat on medium speed 10 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Add flour mixture alternately with milk and flavorings, creaming by hand until smooth after each addition. Spread batter into prepared 10-inch bundt pan. Bake until tester inserted into cake comes out clean ( I used the old one  finger touch), about 1 hour and 25 minutes. Cool in pan 15 minutes. Remove from pan; cool on rack.

Glaze with OLD-FASHIONED BOURBON GLAZE: Combine sugar, bourbon, zest and enough orange juice to make a thin glaze. Drizzle onto cake.