Farm Kitchen Staples: Pound Cake with Hot Lemon Pudding

There are few things which delight the Farmer’s Wife more than a good memory. And since most of her memories are made up of food, it’s not surprising we should find her reminiscing a bit here and there while she’s cooking away in the kitchen. But this one is her Fa-vor-ite.

You see, when she was growing up, there was no Farm, just a small plot in the city where her parents did the-best-they-could. There was an itty-bitty garden. And a lot of canned meat transformed in the way of salmon patties, tuna noodle casserole, and other such delicacies. There was chipped beef on toast—or S.O.S., as the Farmer likes to call it (a nod to his Army days). And there was this dessert: A store-bought pound cake slathered in boxed-made lemon pudding, still steaming from the pan. It was simple. It was glorious.

It was home.

Now, of course, the Farmer’s Wife had to make it her own, and by that, I mean ditching the store-bought and the boxed and make it herself.

And this is how it’s done:

For the Cake*: One and a half cups pastry flour is added to a sifter, along with a half teaspoon salt and a good pinch baking soda. This is sifted into a bowl and set aside for a bit, while you cream a half cup (stick) room temperature butter with one and a half cups sugar of the granulated variety. When this gets nice and smooth, three room temperature eggs are added and beaten into the mix. When all is creamy loveliness, a teaspoon good vanilla is poured in and stirred a bit. Now comes the fun part. About a third of the flour mixture is added, stirring until it’s just so. (Just a note, the bowl will need  to be scraped down now and then.) A quarter cup room temperature sour cream is added, again mixing just a bit. Another third of the flour mixture. Another quarter cup sour cream followed by the last bit of flour. It is left to mix just a bit longer than the other times, until all is light and smooth. All this gooey loveliness is poured into a standard-sized bread-loaf pan whose inside has been rubbed down with some butter. The pan is placed in a three-hundred-and fifty-degree oven, where it is left by itself to bake for an hour or so, or when a toothpick inserted near the center comes back clean. When it’s done, it’s left to rest a bit in the pan before a knife is slid along all its edges before tipping it out onto a cooling rack.

Now, on to that Pudding! A cup of sugar of the granulated variety is placed in a pot, along with one third cup corn starch. These are stirred together until they are one and the same. A cup and a half of water is added to the mix, and yes, that’s stirred in, too. Three lemons are zested and juiced and the effects of all that zesting and juicing is placed in the pan, followed by three egg yolks** and three tablespoons good, salted butter. All is stirred with a whisk and set over medium heat. And it’s kept on getting whisked, too, until it starts bubbling and spattering and thickening. When it does, the heat is turned off and the pudding set aside for just a minute, while a thick slice of that cake is set on a plate. Once it is, a good bit is poured over all. Warmth and comfort, all in one!

*Save this Recipe! It is one the Farmer’s Wife uses many times and in many ways. In fact, it’s one of her Base-ics.

**At the Farm, they use their own eggs (of course!) and because all their chickens spend most of their lives hunting and pecking out-of-doors, their yolks are marigolden yellow, which makes for a bright yellow lemon pudding. Yours might not be like that. To fix this predicament you may be finding yourself in, either get some chickens yourself and let them live out-of-doors, hunting and pecking, or buy your eggs from someone who does. Just saying.