pound it down

Sometimes my epicurean choices are dictated by what we have handy.  For instance, I have never found a can of evaporated milk with exactly the amount I needed, so I had a little leftover from a recent batch of soup.  My go-to recipe for excess evaporated milk?  Pound cake.

As luck would have it, I also had the last bit of a large jar of poppy seeds, and half a lemon that was left from... something.  Who knows?  Point is, I figured I could fake my way through a lemon poppy seed pound cake.  Then I checked my pound cake recipe, and found a lemon poppyseed variation on the same page that made my exciting experiment for the afternoon a pointless exercise in Following Directions.  Almost.

Betty Crocker's pound cake
3 C flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2.5 C granulated sugar
1 C butter, softened
1 t vanilla
5 large eggs
1 C milk or evaporated milk (I used a mixture, because I didn't have quite enough evaporated milk)

for lemon-poppy seed variation:
substitute lemon extract for vanilla.  Fold 1 T grated lemon peel and 1/4 C poppy seeds into batter

Grease bottom and sides of two 9x5 loaf pans (there are size variations, but they don't mean anything to me because I don't have those pans, so I'm skipping them) and lightly flour the pans.  Heat oven to 350F.

Cream butter and sugar.  Beat in vanilla and eggs.  (Or lemon extract and eggs.  I didn't have lemon extract, so I squeezed the bejesus out of the lemon half I had, and poured the bejesus into the batter.  Boom.  I extracted it!)  Add dry ingredients gradually (and poppy seeds, if you're into that), and alternately with milk.  Beat just until smooth. Pour into pans.  Bake 55-60 minutes and test with a toothpick in the middle of the loaf (if you don't know this one, stick a toothpick into the center of the cake.  If it comes out clean, you're done.  If it comes out goopy and covered in batter, it needs to bake longer.).

Cool 20 minutes and remove from pans.  Cool completely before storing (the book says about 2 hours.  I have never in my life let a fresh pound cake sit that long without trying a slice or two).  You could top it with a bit of powdered sugar, but if you have some leftover raspberry jam, that's good, too.