Cria Watch Pound Cake

Last month I wrote a post Is Breeding Like Baking?. Trapped at home for over three weeks during a cria watch that eventually resulted in the birth of Thisbe (See Exhaustion Redux, The Story of Thisbe, and Thisbe at Two), I turned to comfort baking and one of my favorites: Old-Fashioned Poundcake. I received a note the other day from someone here in Colorado who wanted to know if it worked well in our high-altitude and if so, would I publish the recipe?

The answer is Yes and Yes! This is my favorite old-fashioned poundcake and it makes a tender, short crumb that rises perfectly cooked in a bundt or tube pan, even here at 7,000 feet. I’ve had this recipe since junior high school.

McCall’s Perfect Poundcake

8 egg whites (1 cup)
3 c sifted all-purpose flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
2 c sugar
8 egg yolks
2 c unsalted butter at room temperature
1 T grated orange peel
2 T grated lemon peel
2 T lemon juice
2 T water

Glaze: (optional)

1 T butter
1 pkg (1 lb) confectioner’s sugar
1 t grated lemon peel
1/3 c lemon juice

Separate eggs, turning yolks into one large bowl and whites into another. Let whites warm to room temp, about 1 hour. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a 10″ bundt or tube pan.

Whisk sifted flour, baking powder, and 1/4 t salt together and set aside. Grate lemon and orange peel, measure and set aside. Juice the lemons, measure and set aside.

Beat egg whites with 1/4 t salt until foamy. Slowly add in 1 c sugar while beating until soft peaks form. Set aside.

Cream butter with remaining 1 c sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in yolks, then peels and lemon juice plus 2 T water until smooth. At low speed, add in flour mixture a third at a time just until combined. Then fold in egg whites just until blended. Don’t overmix.

Turn batter into pan and bake about 60 minutes in middle of oven until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool on rack 15 minutes and turn out.

To glaze: Blend butter, sugar, lemon juice and peel until smooth. Brush over entire surface of warm cake.

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Is Breeding Like Baking?

It’s a day for baking. The temperature has dropped twenty degrees from yesterday and the overcast skies seem to support the forecast for rain. I’m on cria watch still and trapped here pretty much all day. It’s also our fourteenth wedding anniversary. Put all that together and that says CAKE to me.

I love to bake. ‘Carb’ is not a four letter word in this house. Butter, sugar, nuts, and chocolate are my four favorite food groups. Today calls for an old favorite, nothing too fancy – I’m making an old-fashioned glazed pound cake. This may seem decidedly unfestive for a special occasion, but there is nothing better than a well-balanced pound cake and it’s trickier than you’d think, especially with the challenges of living at 7,000 ft in altitude.  Pound cakes can often collapse here with their high ratio of butter and sugar to structure-building ingredients of flour and eggs. I’m aiming for a nicely domed and crusty pound cake baked in a bundt form, with a tender but not heavy crumb and just a hint of lemony goodness infused through grated rind and juice.  I also like to seal the whole cake in a glaze brushed on when warm and this one will be based on lemon juice as well. In my mind, I can see it perfectly.

And that’s when it strikes me. Breeding that perfect alpaca cria is a lot like baking.

Okay, hold on and stop the laughing. It’s true. I almost get the same buzz when I’m combining males and females as I do when I tweak a recipe to make it come out the way I want. And the process is similar: Think about the result you want, choose the ingredients, combine, bake, wait, look at the results when done, make changes as needed.  Decorate when ready – in a few hours for a cake, in six to seven months for a cria. Voila! – analogy complete.

The cake is in the oven now. I’ll leave it in there for at least an hour before opening the door to take a peek. It’s hard not to cheat and poke one finger in to gently probe at the top. That could be catastrophic here where structural strength in a leavened cake can be terribly fragile. Meanwhile, my expectant dam is out at the barn. I run up to check on her and there’s no change. I can see that baby moving and the evidence of its activity in the quick rise and fall of her belly.  It would be a very nice anniversary gift if that baby would arrive today – the beautiful fawn girl I’ve pictured in my head for eleven months now. I can’t wait to meet her though am prepared for other outcomes. As long as it arrives healthy and is standing and nursing in good time, I’ll be happy (though that fawn girl would make me even happier). I’m pretty sure the pound cake will be out and glazed before the baby but I have a new vision in my head – of carrying out a piece of freshly baked pound cake to nibble on while I watch the baby stumble around with its first steps.

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