cathartic baking

for some reason, I have felt the need to bake this week. I don't know if it just makes me feel cozy or grounded. baked goods always seem to remind me of home. being home. belonging to a home. it's one of the few things we still do by scratch- or we can. I try, at least. I had a friend's mom in high school who always made pound cake. there seemed to always be one. warm. with powdered sugar sifted on top.

So this week, I made not one, but two pound cakes. I decided I needed my own pound cake.

I started with this recipe. from here.

Pound Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/4 cups sugar
3 sticks butter, softened
1/2 C + 1T. milk
5 large eggs
2 t. flavoring of choice (vanilla, almond, lemon -- or a mixture)

Preheat your oven to 325. Butter and flour a tube or Bundt pan. Place the ingredients in your standing mixer bowl in the order they are listed. (Note: It is really necessary that you make this in a standing mixer.) Beat at low speed 1 minute. Scrape down sides. Beat at medium speed for 2 minutes. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top of the batter. Bake at 325 for 1 hour and 30 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes on a rack. Invert the cake on to the rack and remove the pan. Cool it completely.

The second one was better than the first, but still a bit dense. oh well, guess we'll have to keep working on it.

Tonight I made these blueberry muffins from one of my favorite food blogs over here.

* I did not have lemon zest. I used sour cream. and I also used dried blueberries from Aldi.

Blueberry muffins: Makes 9 to 10 standard muffins

5 tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces or 71 grams) unsalted butter , softened
1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces or 100 grams) sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces or 191 grams) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon (7 grams or 1/4 ounce) baking powder
1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon (2 grams) salt
3/4 cup (3 3/4 ounces or 105 grams) blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, don’t bother defrosting)

Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a muffin tin with 10 paper liners or spray each cup with a nonstick spray. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well, then yogurt and zest. Put flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a sifter and sift half of dry ingredients over batter. Mix until combined. Sift remaining dry ingredients into batter and mix just until the flour disappears. Gently fold in your blueberries. The dough will be quite thick (and even thicker, if you used a full-fat Greek-style yogurt), closer to a cookie dough, which is why an ice cream scoop is a great tool to fill your muffin cups. You’re looking for them to be about 3/4 full, nothing more, so you might only need 9 instead of 10 cups. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until tops are golden and a tester inserted into the center of muffins comes out clean (you know, except for blueberry goo). Let cool on rack (ha), or you know, serve with a generous pat of butter.