Betternut Pound Cake
Karen WeHunt Harden | wharden1950@gmail.com
Mother’s mother was Lottie Carnell Green. Mother wanted us to call Lottie Grandmother, but Lottie wanted to be called Lottie. All I could get out was La La, so Lottie was La La for Doug and me.
La La had an older sister named Gertrude (Carnell West). She and her husband, Vester, lived in Greer behind Fowler’s French Dry Cleaners. Their two daughters, Mae and Lucy, built their homes on the same street. Gertrude raise green-eyed blue gray Maltese cats and Vester could carve monkeys out of peach pits.
I will never forget going to Aunt Gertrude’s. At Christmas, she had a small clear plastic tabletop tree she stuck spice-drop candy on for decoration and to share. Other times when we visited, we could smell the butternut pound cake before you hit the back door.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and grease and flour a tube pan.
Ingredients:
1 cup Crisco shortening
2 sticks butter
2.5 cups sugar
8 large eggs
3.5 cups cake flour
.25 teaspoon Cream of Tartar
1 tablespoon flavoring, Butternut, lemon or vanilla extract
Instructions: Cream shortening, butter, and sugar at medium speed for 10 minutes. Add an egg, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Blend in flour, cream of tartar, and flavoring. Scrape the bowl often. Bake at 325 degrees F for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
Frosting (if desired, but not necessary)
Ingredients:
1 stick butter
1 box Confectioners’ sugar
Evaporated milk
1 tablespoon flavoring or extract
Instructions:
Blend butter, sugar and flavoring with enough milk to obtain the consistency you want. Frost completely cooled cake.
La La did not make biscuits. She used canned biscuits, but made great cornbread. When La La baked a pound cake, she shared with us because her freezer was too full of vegetables from their garden.
La La was not much on breakfast, but she enjoyed a slice of pound cake with her coffee in the morning. Over the years when I had pound cake with coffee, I imagined I was having breakfast with La La. Sweet memories sometimes make you cry.
Tender, sweet, cry-worthy stories need to be shared. Please enter yours into the Woodruff Times Recipe Contest. We have a special gift for the story that makes us cry the most.
Author: Tracy Sanders
