Cold Oven Pound Cake

Here is another "different" recipe. This is for a pound cake that you do not preheat the oven for. I read somewhere that when you make a pound cake without preheating the oven you will have a moist top, not hard at all. It may be somewhat true. This pound cake is very dense and heavy. It is moist but would be better with a hot cup of coffee used for dunking. Instead of using 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract, if I make this again, I would use 1 tsp vanilla and 1 tsp almond extract. I found this on allrecipes. The reviews were all favorable but one of them did say that this is best as a base for a pound cake and to go from there regarding flavoring it with extracts. I also followed some of the suggestions and used only 2 1/2 cups sugar. The cake will fool you as it bakes. I didn't realize that it would not brown as a pound cake normally would and kept thinking that the cake was not done. Well after almost two hours in the oven I checked it and the top was pretty hard since I overbaked this baby! So make sure after 1 1/2 hours you check it with a toothpick regardless of the color. Also, many of the reviews on allrecipes did state that it reminded them of their grandmothers pound cakes. Whatever that may mean!!! (I also substituted all butter for the margarine and shortening.)

1 cup margarine

1/2 cup shortening

3 cups white sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup milk

3 cups all purpose flour

Butter and flour a 10 inch tube or Bundt pan. Combine margarine, shortening and sugar and cream until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time and incorporate well after each addition. Stir in vanilla extract. Alternately add in flour and milk ending with flour until well incorporated. Place in cold oven and start baking at 300F for 1 1/2 hours. Cake is done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. When cake is done place on rack for 10 minutes and then remove cake.