Vanilla Pound Cake

My book club read Julie and Julia by Julie Powell a few weeks ago and we met last week to discuss the book. So being that it was all about food, I went on a search for the perfect Julia Child recipe that I could afford and be able to find the ingredients. I decided on Vanilla Pound Cake from Baking with Julia Child.
Also served was french toast coffee cake, meringue cookies, baked brie with mango chutney and sandwiches on a croissant. All very delicious and of course served with french red wine!

The pound cake, so called because of it's original proportions-a pound of flour, a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, and a pound of eggs-is a tight-grained, moist, good keeping cake that holds it's flavor.

                 sorry for such dark shots, it gets pretty dark in my kitchen...(husband project, under cabinet lights)
Vanilla Pound Cake
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted, room temp butter
2 cups sugar
3 large, room temp eggs, whisk to blend
1 cup milk, room temperature
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preheat 350. Butter and flour your tube pan, bundt pan whichever you prefer.
Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together onto a sheet of wax paper. Reserve for later.
Put the butter into mixer bowl with paddle attachment and beat at medium speed until smooth. With the machine running, add the sugar in a steady stream. Stop the machine and scrape down the paddles and the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Continue to beat at medium speed until the mixture is very light and fluffy, about 4 to 5 minutes.
With mixer at medium speed, begin to add the eggs in small additions. If the mixture becomes watery, stop adding eggs and beat at an increased speed until smooth again.The mixture is properly combined when it appears white, fluffy and increased in volume.
Reduce mixer to low and add the flour mixture and the milk alternating-4 flour and 3 milk scraping the paddle and bowl frequently and mixing until the batter is smooth after each addition. Add the vanilla and mix just to blend.
Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with spatula. Bake 55 to 65 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean. Transfer to cooling rack, cool 10 minutes.
Cake can be kept covered at room temperature for 3 days or wrapped and frozen for 1 month. Keep in mind that stale pound cake is excellent lightly toasted and used as the base of ice cream sandwiches.

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Have you made this pound cake? Have you tried making anything else from Julia Child? Feel free to post a link in the comments.
Enjoy!

xoxo
-N