On Julia Phillips’s 83rd birthday, her daughters Mary Margaret Swedenburg and Mandy Hannon arrived at her assisted living facility with a familiar sight: a pound cake.
But this was no ordinary pound cake. It was baked using the recipe Phillips submitted to the cookbook “A Grand Heritage” before its first printing in 1983. Phillips baked the cake throughout her daughters’ childhoods. Eating a slice of it seemed to bring back fond memories.
Phillips said she doesn’t know where the exact recipe came from, she said her mother passed the recipe on to her when Swedenburg and Hannon were still very little.
“Best I can remember, it came from my mama,” Phillips said. “I’m guessing that it came sometimes when they were very small. She was among the first group that started the Pink Ladies at the hospital here, she and my aunt. But it was sometime around then, when she was working as a Pink Lady, that she gave me the recipe.”
This recipe was one of two recipes Phillips’s mother gave her. The other was chocolate chess pie. These two dishes became staples for Phillips, as she started making either one or the other for every occasion where she needed to bring a dish.
While Phillips no longer bakes for the family, she passed these classic recipes down to her daughters. Hannon learned to make the chocolate chess pie. Swedenberg learned to make the pound cake.
“It’s a treasure,” Swedenburg said. “I don’t even know why I started making it, but it was a good, easy recipe. I’ve had friends tell me to make these and sell these, but that would suck the joy out of it. It’s really easy and most people enjoy it.”
Swedenberg said she has changed the recipe only slightly from its original printing in 1983, substituting butter for the 1 1/2 cups of margarine the recipe originally called for. She also checks the oven at around an hour and 10 minutes into baking, when cooking in loaf pans, to ensure no overbaking occurs.
But otherwise, she has remained as faithful as possible to her mother’s recipe, following it closely, particularly the phrase, “have all ingredients at room temperature.”
“That’s key,” Swedenburg said. “That’s the most vital thing to remember. … Usually when I’m making it, I’m thinking six hours ahead, to set things out. It’s really quick to mix it up.”
Swedenburg said she only uses real Crisco to grease the pan to make sure the cake comes out of the pan whole. She sometimes makes the pound cake in loaf pans, too, but she typically bakes the pound cake in a bundt pan around Christmas time, to give out to friends and family.
While only one sister has perfected baking her mother’s pound cake, Hannon also shared fond memories of the cake growing up.
“I can remember when we were in elementary school and our school did something like a fall carnival or a Halloween festival, and we would have a cake walk,” Hannon said. “Lots of the moms would bake cakes, and I always wanted to do the cakewalk to win the pound cake my mom brought.”
When it comes to serving the pound cake, the women have different favorite toppings. Phillips said she liked to serve it with fresh, homemade whipped cream and strawberries.
Swedenburg also said she remembered eating it with a lemon-sugar icing, though that recipe has since been lost. Hannon said her favorite way to eat it was sliced, toasted and buttered in the morning.
But Phillips, Hannon and Swedenburg are not the only ones with fond memories of the pound cake, as the recipe is continuing to get passed on through generations. Phillips said one of her grandsons has recently started to make her chocolate chess pie, and she is hoping to see the pound cake carry on as well.
“The tradition carries on,” Swedenburg said.
POUND CAKE
Adapted from the cookbook “A Grand Heritage”
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups butter
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs
3 cups sifted plain flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla or lemon extract
Directions
■ Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Have all ingredients at room temperature.
■ Cream together butter, cream cheese and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift flour and salt together and add. Mix well. Stir in flavoring.
■ Bake in a greased and floured tube or bundt pan for 1 hour and 10 minutes to an hour and 30 minutes (Swedenburg said she checks frequently). May also be baked in 2 loaf pans.
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