A neighbor won a bag of King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour the other day, and since she doesn’t bake, she gave it to me. If you’re not aware, the WWW flour is a whole grain flour but that acts like regular white flour–as in, you can bake with it without having that heavy, “whole-wheat” feel and flavor to your baked goods. It’s great for bread, of course, but I opted to start with cake. So I invented this one. I’m calling it Buttermilk-Spice Pound Cake.

And, yes, I brought some to our neighbor, much to Dad and Chappy’s chagrin. They are both really enjoying this cake!

Otherwise? I’ve spent more time in the kitchen than I probably should–definitely a trend for me on weekends lately–but I couldn’t resist this beautiful weather, either, so Chappy definitely got a walk. (Note the beginning of buds on the dogwood tree.) I also dusted my room and did some laundry. I did NOT, however, start cleaning out my closet like I should have done. Too depressing.

It occurs to me, too, that this is the last full week of the month, and I should really start typing in my reading list for March. That monthly-reading post always takes a while!

(And, if you’re interested in the cake recipe, it’s right here, after the bump.)

Buttermik-Spice Pound Cake

1/2 lb (1 cup)  butter, softened
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
a dollop of molasses (maybe 1/4 cup?)
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 cup White Whole Wheat flour (or regular all-purpose flour)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cream the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy, then add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition to make sure it’s fully incorporated.

Now, I usually take the lazy way out and add all the small bits of dry ingredients to the bowl now, while it’s easy to mix them in. The proper way, of course, is to sift together all the dry ingredients, including the spices, and add them all together. I find that’s too much of a bother. So, at this point, add in all the spices, the vanilla, the baking powder, and the molasses, and blend well.

Add the 1 cup of the flour and half the buttermilk and blend well, then repeat. You don’t want to over-mix this, or it will become tough.

Pour into a greased bundt pan and bake at 350 until done, about a hour. (You could bake this in two layer pans, if you prefer, but I didn’t want to have to deal with frosting.)

When baked, cool on a wire rack.

Glaze:

1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 tsp lemon juice (approx–I didn’t actually measure).

I didn’t want a lot of glaze, because I didn’t want to make the cake overly sweet, but I did want just a little bit of lemony sweetness on the top, so I made a tiny amount of glaze and drizzled it over the top. If you want more, by all means, make more!

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