Brown Sugar LB Cake

We are packing up and moving from Philly next week.

We will celebrate our nation's birthday in the city where it all started, eat some blueberry pie, ooh and ahh at fireworks, and then in the following days, pack a POD and get on an airplane.

I've been terribly sad and nostalgic to face our final days here. Remind me, too, never to plan a move within weeks of having a baby. Holystressamoly.

One great boon about moving however, is that it forces you to clean out and (hopefully) simplify a bit. It's amazing what kind of things you find..... like, two big bags of brown sugar tucked in the far back of your pantry. No joke.

I remember long ago spotting a pound cake recipe in Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook that called for quite a heap of brown sugar. So yesterday, we baked. We enjoyed and used up more than half of one of the bags of brown sugar.

It's not an overwhelmingly amazing recipe by any stretch of the imagination, but the brown sugar is definitely there with each bite and it's quite tasty going down. My only recommendation with this recipe is to underbake it just slightly- not so that it's still doughy, but just a few minutes shy of its elapsed time. I baked one loaf a minute too long, another one a couple minutes under and the latter was far better and much more moist. No one wants to eat a dry, crumbly piece of pound cake. Blah!

Hence, yank the pans out when the middle of each loaf is still just a bit soft and allow it finish cooking for 5-10 minutes in the pan on a wire rack. The cake should be just barely golden on all the edges. Martha says to bake it for an hour; she must be referring to those of you living in the Alps or Uintahs?? Because my oven completed the job in 25 minutes. Moral of my story? Know your oven!

Oh, and we concluded after eating it that some partially melted vanilla-bean ice cream along with freshly cut peaches on top of this would seal the deal.

Off to box!

Ta ta.

Brown Sugar Pound Cake

{Martha Stewart, Baking Handbook}

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

5 eggs

2 1/4 cups brown sugar

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup buttermilk

Butter two 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaf pans. Preheat oven to 325.

In a large mixing bowl, whip the butter and brown sugar. Add eggs, one at a time. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Alternating with the buttermilk, add flour in three batches. Stir until everything is just combined and make sure to scrap down the bowl!

Using a rubber spatula, divide batter equally into both greased loaf pans.

Bake in 325 degree oven for 30-60 minutes. Remember, you want to slightly underbake it!
Allow to cool in pans for 10 minutes, run a knife along the edges, and finish cooling on a wire rack.